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CHANGE 



OF THE 



SABBATH 



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PRICE, SO OI^^VI^. 



THE 



CHANGE OF THE SABBATH: 



WAS IT BY 



Divine or Human Authority? 



BY GEO. I. BUTLER. 




REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING CO., 

Battle Creek, Mich.; Chicago, III.; 

Toronto, Ontario. 

1889. 



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Copyright, 1889, by Geo. T. Butler. 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



The L»* arY 

of Congress 

WASHISOWS 



PREFACE. 



This pamphlet has been written with the 
hope that it may find access to a large num- 
ber of people who desire information con- 
cerning the change of the Sabbath, — a sub- 
ject which is attracting more attention at the 
present time than it has for ages. Frequent 
inquiries concerning the day are being sent 
to prominent theologians and scholars, and to 
the leading secular and religious papers, ask- 
ing for light ; and the question is fast becom- 
ing a prominent one. Thousands of sermons, 
in the aggregate, have been preached in re- 
cent years upon this subject, nor is the agita- 
tion likely to subside. As the public mind 
is being stirred, there seems to be a demand 
for more stringent laws, both State and na- 
tional, in behalf of the popular rest day ; and 
as we are living in an age when libraries are 
being searched, ruins of ancient cities are 
being dug up, and everything questioned to 
find the substratum of truth on every sub- 
ject, it is certainly appropriate that the script- 
ural and historical evidences relative to the 

Sabbath institution should be considered. 

[iii] 



iv PREFACE. 

The questions are often asked, How was the 
change from the observance of the seventh to 
the first day of the week brought about ? On 
what authority does it stand ? The following 
pages will quite fully answer these queries, 
although the work does not aim to be a thor- 
ough exposition of the subject treated. Those 
in search of such a book are referred to the 
"History of the Sabbath," issued by the pub- 
lishers of this pamphlet. The " History of 
the Sabbath " carefully canvasses the entire 
ground of sacred and profane history, notic- 
ing every point, and answering every ques- 
tion. But as many cannot take the time re- 
quired to read such an exhaustive treatise, 
this pamphlet has been prepared, which cov- 
ers the ground of the change of the Sabbath 
as briefly as is consistent with a clear discus- 
sion of the subject, and gives a concise out- 
line of the steps taken in bringing about the 
change* It is hoped that this work will prove 
a fair synopsis of the subject, and answer 
in a satisfactory manner the question, Who 
changed the Sabbath ? g. I. B. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

CHAPTER L — The Sabbath a Living Issue . 7-10 

CHAPTER II. —Origin of the Sabbath . . 11-15 

CHAPTER III. — The Sabbath Previous to the 

Giving of the Law 15-22 

CHAPTER IV. — The Sabbath at Sinai . . 22-24 

CHAPTER V. — What the Fourth Commandment 

Requires 25-27 

CHAPTER VI. —The Sabbath from the Giving of 

the Law to the Resurrection of Christ . 27-34 

CHAPTER VII. — From the Resurrection to the 

Ascension of Christ 34~49 

CHAPTER VIII. — Sunday Sacredness . . 49-60 

CHAPTER IX. —Apostolic Times . . . . 61-81 

CHAPTER X. — The Two Rest Days in Secular 

History 81-88 

CHAPTER XI. — The Day that Was Observed in 

the First Centuries of the Christian Era 88-Q9 

CHAPTER XII. — Steps by which Sunday Gained 

Prominence 1 00-114 

CHAPTER XIII. — Other Reasons why Sunday 

Was Favored 1 14-120 

CHAPTER XIV. — A Law for Resting on Sun- 
day . . 120-13 1 

CHAPTER XV. — Sunday Down to the Reforma- 
tion 131-142 

[v] 



vi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XVI. — The Reformers and the Sab- 
bath Question 142-151 

CHAPTER XVII. —Traces of the Sabbath i 51-164 

CHAPTER XVIII. — What Catholic Authorities 
Say About the Change .... 165-177 

CHAPTER XIX. — Testimony of Protestants 177-182 

CHAPTER XX. — General Observations and Con- 
clusions . 182-203 

CHAPTER XXI. — Summary of Facts About the 

Seventh Day 204-213 

CHAPTER XXII. — Summary of Facts Concerning 

the First Day 213-218 



THE CHANGE OF THE SABBATH. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SABBATH A LIVING ISSUE. 

THIS question is agitating the public mind 
throughout Christendom. It is one of the 
leading questions of the age, and promises to 
become more and more important. In past 
centuries it has engaged public attention 
more or less. Theologians have often wres- 
tled with it, and fondly thought they had 
settled it ; but the revolving years still bring 
it to the surface. It will not down. Legis- 
latures have considered it, and from time to 
time have placed the heavy hand of civil 
power in the scale to make the result de- 
cisive. Yet the public mind is not at rest ; 
the interest in the subject revives ; and it is 
safe to say that at the present time there is 
more real desire to know the whole truth 
upon this question than there has been at 
any time for a thousand years past. 

The age in which w r e live is peculiar. There 
is little reverence in its spirit for the opinions 
of the hoary past. Everything is being in- 
vestigated, and it is not surprising that the 
Sabbath question should have its share of 
public attention ; the nature of the subject is 
such that it merits consideration. The Bible 

P] 



8 THE SABBATH A LIVING ISSUE. 

presents the Sabbath as the most ancient 
institution, excepting marriage, which man 
was to observe as a moral duty. Gen. 2 : 1-3. 
Its existence has run parallel with that of the 
race. Multitudes of the most intelligent and 
conscientious believe that its universal ob- 
servance is necessary if man is to attain to 
his highest physical, moral, and spiritual 
development. The most civilized and pow- 
erful nations of the earth have even made 
rigorous laws to enforce a weekly rest-day 
upon their subjects. It comes to hundreds of 
millions of our race every seven days of our 
mortal life. It furnishes a day of worship 
and religious instruction to a large portion of 
the human family. It cannot be denied that 
it has furnished one of the most powerful 
impulses to mold our modern civilization. 
The importance of the subject, then, cannot 
be overestimated. 

But the Sabbath, above all else, is a reli- 
gious day. It called into being the division 
of time into weeks. No other cause can be 
found for the week, other than the appoint- 
ment of a day to be observed in memory of 
God's work of creation. All we know of its 
origin we learn from Moses' record of crea- 
tion in the Bible. The Gentile nations have 
received its benefits since their conversion 
from heathenism, till now it is known to 
earth's remotest bounds. As the Sabbath 
relates to God, and he appointed its rest, and 
made it a religious day, and all we know of 
its institution and moral obligation is derived 
from his word, the question becomes one of 
religious duty, — a question of conscience, 



THE SABBATH A LIVING ISSUE. 9 

relating primarily to human salvation, and 
but secondarily to man's physical and social 
welfare. 

There can be no Sabbath institution unless 
some day is observed as a Sabbath. This is 
self-evident. Some particular day, recurring 
every week, must be used as a day of rest 
and religious observance in order to have 
such an institution. Since God is the author 
of the institution, he must, therefore, have 
appointed some day for its celebration. To 
leave any day of the seven to be observed as 
the Sabbath would have much the same effect 
as to have no Sabbath at all ; the days of the 
week would stand upon an equality. The 
essence of the institution requires the ap- 
pointment of a particular day of the seven as 
a day of rest and worship. 

Did God appoint such a day ? If so, what 
day was it ? Has the original appointment 
continued till the present time ? or has God 
for some important reason changed it to an- 
other day ? What day is now obligatory ? 
These are questions of great moment. In 
religious truth, upon which our salvation 
hinges, we want to know God's will. Human 
authority is not sufficient. In this age, every- 
thing which can be shaken will be shaken. 
We want to anchor to those things which 
will stand the test of the closest examination. 
It is an investigating age. Everything is 
being criticised. Our souls demand the 
truth. Truth will bear examination ; but it 
is not so with error. 

In the great Sabbath agitation of the pres- 
ent age, every point will receive the closest 



10 THE SABBATH A LIVING ISStJJtf. 

scrutiny by unbelievers. Christians should 
therefore know whereof they affirm. We 
want the divine warrant for religious institu- 
tions. Human authority is but as chaff to 
the wheat. What has the Lord said ? should 
be our inquiry. " Thy word is a lamp unto 
my feet, and a light unto my path." " All 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God, . . . 
that the man of God may be perfect, thor- 
oughly furnished unto all good works." 

We therefore propose to investigate the 
subject of the Sabbath with special reference 
to the question, What day should we observe 
as the Sabbath in this age of the world ? 
The public mind is interested in it. Thou- 
sands of children, coming to years of under- 
standing, ask their parents why they observe 
the first day of the week, while the command- 
ment requires the seventh. We want to help 
these parents to answer that question truly. 
Multitudes are perplexed upon this point ; 
and we hope to assist somewhat in answering 
it. We propose to examine the Scriptures, 
which should ever be of primal authority ; 
also to consider the statements of history 
bearing upon it, and thus give the ground a 
brief but faithful examination. If the Bible 
will thoroughly furnish us " unto all good 
works," it will enable us to settle this ques- 
tion correctly. Where shall we look for light 
upon it, if not to God's revealed truth? "To 
the law and to the testimony ; " if they will 
not afford us light, we may look in vain to 
man's authority. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ORIGIN OF THE SABBATH. 

OUR Saviour says, " The Sabbath was 
made for man." Mark 2 : 27. The term man 
must here be used in its generic sense, com- 
prehending the whole race. If the Sabbath, 
then, was made for mankind, it must have 
been made at the time when man himself was 
created ; hence we must go back to the 
creation for the institution of the Sabbath. 

The first part of Moses' record of the 
creation, in Gen. 1 and 2, is devoted to the 
origin of the weekly cycle and the Sabbath 
institution. Here God sets before us the 
result of each day's work. He carefully 
distinguishes between the days, stating that 
each was composed of an " evening and a 
morning," — a dark part and a light part, — thus 
describing the twenty-four-hour day. After 
carefully enumerating the labor of six of these 
days, he declares that the work of creation is 
completed. What he did on the next day, 
the seventh of this first week of time, is stated 
in chap. 2 : 2, 3 : " And on the seventh day 
God ended his work which he had made ; 
and he rested on the seventh day from all his 
work which he had made. And God blessed 
the seventh day, and sanctified it ; because 
that in it he had rested from all his work 
which God created and made." Here we have 
the origin of the weekly cycle, the Sabbatic 
institution, and the distinction between the 
days of the week. The Bible speaks of " the 

[11] 



12 THE ORIGIN OF THE SABBATH 

six working days" and "the Sabbath day." 
Eze. 46 : 1. This brief narrative in the very 
first record of the world's history, makes this 
distinction plain. God himself employed six 
specific days of the first week in the labor of 
creating, and the seventh day of that week in 
resting. The word " Sabbath" means rest. 

Why did God choose to work just six days 
and rest the seventh ? He might have made 
the world in a moment, or he could have 
employed any other amount of time in doing 
it. He did not rest because he was weary, 
for he " fainteth not, neither is weary." Isa. 
40 : 28. No other reason can be assigned but 
this : He was laying the foundation of that 
glorious institution which our Saviour de- 
clares was made for the race of men, the Sab- 
bath of the Lord. 

But to bring out this point still more 
clearly, let us notice carefully the language 
we have quoted from Gen. 2 : 2, 3. The first 
act of God on the seventh day was to rest ; it 
thus became God's rest day, or Sabbath. His 
second act concerning it was to place his bles- 
sing upon it; thus it became his "blessed" 
rest day. His third act was to "sanctify" it. 
Sanctify signifies to "set apart to a holy or 
religious use." — Webster. By this appoint- 
ment, the seventh day of the week became 
the day of holy rest and religious observance 
for those for whom it was designed, until 
such appointment should be revoked. No- 
tice how definite is the language : " God 
blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it ; be- 
cause that in it he had rested from all his 
work which God created and made." The 



THE ORIGIN OF THE SABBATH. 13 

blessing and sanctification of the seventh day 
were not therefore bestowed upon it until that 
particular day on which he rested was in the 
past. The blessing bestowed pertained to its 
future recurrence as it returned in the weekly 
cycle. Every time it returned after this bles- 
sing was placed upon it, it was to be under- 
stood by those who reverenced God that it 
was his blessed day, and must not be treated 
as the other six days were treated. It was 
also " sanctified," that is, it was now the day 
appointed for religious uses. While it was 
proper to use the other six days for secular 
work and ordinary business, the seventh day 
of the week, every time it returned, was only 
to be used for religious purposes. All this oc- 
curred, according to the inspired record, at 
the close of creation week. 

It is sometimes objected that we have no 
command for the observance of the seventh- 
day Sabbath till the giving of the law to 
Israel on Mount Sinai. Such objectors fail to 
comprehend the record in Gen. 2 : 1-3. When 
God sanctified the seventh day, thus ap- 
pointing it to a sacred use, he must have made 
known this fact to Adam and Eve, — those for 
whose benefit it was instituted. They stood 
as the representatives of the race, through 
whom the instructions from God were to be 
given. We cannot conceive how God could 
appoint this day to this special purpose in any 
other way than by informing them of it. 

The Hebrew verb kadash, here rendered 
sanctified, is defined by Gesenius, " To pro- 
nounce holy, to sanctify, ... to institute 
any holy thing, to appoint." This word in 



14 THE ORIGIN OF THE SABBATH 

the Old Testament commonly implies a public 
appointment by proclamation. When the 
cities of refuge were set apart for that partic- 
ular purpose, the record states (Josh. 20 : 7), 
" They appointed (Heb. sanctified, margin) 
Kedesh in Galilee in Mount Naphtali, and 
Shechem in Mount Ephraim," etc. Here we 
see that a public announcement was made of 
the fact to all Israel. In Joel 1 : 14 another in- 
stance is furnished : " Sanctify [i. e. appoint] 
ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the 
elders," etc. This could not be done without 
a public notification of the fact. When king 
Jehu wished to entrap the worshipers of Baal 
and destroy them, he made this public an- 
nouncement : " Proclaim [Heb. sanctify, mar- 
gin] a solemn assembly for Baal. And" they 
proclaimed it." 2 Kings 10 : 20. It would 
not have been possible to make this appoint- 
ment otherwise than by making the people 
acquainted with the fact. 

But the most remarkable instance of this 
use of the word is found in the record of the 
sanctification of Mount Sinai. Ex. 19 : 12, 
23. When the Lord was about to speak the 
ten commandments, he sent Moses down to 
command the people not to touch the mount, 
lest they be destroyed. " And Moses said 
unto the Lord, The people cannot come up 
to Mount Sinai ; for thou chargedst us, say- 
ing, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify 
it." Going back to verse 12, we learn how 
this was done. "And thou shalt set bounds 
unto the people round about, saying, Take 
heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into 
the mount, or touch the border of it." Here 



THE SABBATH PREVIOUS TO SINAI. 15 

we see that to sanctify the mount was to tell 
the people that God would have them treat 
it as sacred to himself. 

From these and many other instances of 
the use of the word sanctify in the Scriptures, 
we must understand that when God sanctified 
the seventh day at creation, he told Adam 
and Eve that it was sacred unto the Lord. 
The statement that " God blessed the seventh 
day, and sanctified it " positively proves that 
the Lord commanded our first parents to 
treat the seventh day as holy time. It is a 
record of that fact ; for in no other way could 
it have been "appointed" to such a use. 
This fact — that God gave a commandment at 
the creation of the world to the representa- 
tive heads of the race, to keep holy the sev- 
enth day of the week — has an important 
bearing upon the Sabbath question for every 
succeeding age. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SABBATH PREVIOUS TO THE GIVING 
OF THE LAW. 

The giving of the law, according to Ush- 
er's chronology, was about twenty-five centu- 
ries after creation week. It is interesting to 
trace the Sabbath through this long, remote 
period. The only written history extant cov- 
ering it, is the book of Genesis, with its fifty 
short chapters, written by Moses. The facts 
presented in it are invaluable. It gives us 
brief glimpses of the long-lived race previous 



16 THE SABBATH PREVIOUS TO SIJSTAL 

to the flood, and of the rise of the most pow- 
erful nations of succeeding ages, and of the 
call of Abraham, with the experiences of his 
immediate descendants. It presents most val- 
uable historical instruction relative to God's 
plan of dealing with his creatures, and the 
principles of his moral government. It is in 
no sense a book of laws, but only a very brief 
history of the earliest ages of antiquity. 

As we have already seen, the book of Gen- 
esis commences with the origin of the weekly 
cycle, as brought to view in the account of 
creation, and the institution of the Sabbath, 
without which that cycle would never have 
existed. The division of time into days, 
months, and years is easily traceable to na- 
ture. The revolution of the earth on its axis, 
the changes of the moon, and the circuit of 
the earth around the sun, originate these di- 
visions of time. But no such origin can be 
found for the weekly cycle. Beyond all ques- 
tion, it owes its existence to the act of Jeho- 
vah in setting apart the seventh day at the 
creation of the world. Not even a plausible 
conjecture has ever been found for any other 
origin of it. It is a well-attested historical fact 
that the weekly cycle existed, and the seventh 
day was kept sacred, by nearly all of the most 
ancient nations of the earth besides the Jews. 
There are decisive evidences which. show that 
the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Arabi- 
ans, Greeks, and Romans, and even the Chi- 
nese, knew of the Sabbath, and at an early 
period regarded it as a sacred day. We may 
notice this point more fully hereafter, but will 
introduce brief evidences of it here. 



THE SABBATH PREVIOUS TO SINAI. 17 

John G. Butler, a Free-will Baptist author, 
in his " Natural and Revealed Theology," p. 
396, says, " We learn, also, from the testi- 
mony of Philo, Hesiod, Josephus, Porphyry, 
and others, that the division of time into 
weeks, and the observance of the seventh 
day, were common to the nations of antiq- 
uity. They would not have adopted such a 
custom from the Jews. Whence, then, could 
it have been derived but through tradition, 
from its original institution in the Garden of 
Eden ? " 

The Asiatic Journal says : — 

"The prime minister of the empire affirms that the 
Sabbath was anciently observed by the Chinese, in con- 
formity to the directions of the king." 

The Congregationalist (Boston), Nov. 15, 
1882, referring to the "Creation Tablets" 
found by Mr. Smith on the bank of the Tigris, 
near Nineveh, gives' the following : — 

"Mr. George Smith says in his 'Assyrian Discover- 
ies ' (1875) : ' In the year 1869 I discovered, among other 
things, a curious religious calendar of the Assyrians, in 
which every month is divided into four weeks, and the 
seventh days, or Sabbaths, are marked out as days on 
which no work should be undertaken. . . . The cal- 
endar contains lists of work forbidden to be done on 
these days, which evidently correspond to the Sabbaths 
of the Jews/ " 

Much more testimony on this point might 
be presented, but this is sufficient to show 
that the weekly cycle and the Sabbath were 
extensively known among these ancient na- 
tions. Brief references to the same thing in 
the books of Genesis and Exodus demon- 
strate the existence of the week and the Sab- 
bath previous to the giving of the law. 

Change of Sabbath. 2 



18 THE SABBATH PREVIOUS TO SINAI. 

In the history of the deluge (Gen. 7 and 8) 
there are several references to the weekly di- 
vision of time. Chap. 7:4: " For yet seven 
days, and I will cause it to rain upon the 
earth." Also chap. 8 : 10, 12 : " And he stayed 
yet other seven days," etc. Here are three 
different weekly periods brought to view in 
this short account of the flood. It could not 
have been accidental that this period of seven 
days should be chosen three successive times. 
It points unmistakably to the fact that the 
weekly cycle was in constant use in that age 
of the world. 

In the history of Jacob's marriage to the 
daughters of Laban, the week is also men- 
tioned. Gen. 29 : 27, 28 : " Fulfill the week of 
this one, and we will give thee the other also 
for the service which thou shalt serve with 
me yet seven other years. And Jacob did so, 
and fulfilled her week" (Revised Version). 
The Sabbath is inseparably connected with 
the weekly division of time ; hence, if the 
week existed, the Sabbath must also have 
been known. We are forced to conclude, there- 
fore, that these inhabitants of Chaldea were 
well acquainted with its sacred obligation. 
Notice the testimony, already referred to, of 
those tablets dug out of ancient ruins found 
in that country. 

A decisive proof that the Sabbath was well 
known to the Israelites previous to the giving 
of the law, is found in Exodus 16 : 4, 5, 22-30 : 
" Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I 
will rain bread from heaven for you ; and the 
people shall go out and gather a certain rate 
every day, that I may prove them, whether 



THE SABBATH PREVIOUS TO SINAI. 19 

they will walk in my law, or no. And it shall 
come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall 
prepare that which they bring in ; and it shall 
be twice as much as they gather daily." Then 
we have an account of the falling of the 
manna. He continues in verses 22-30 : " And 
it came to pass, that on the sixth day they 
gathered twice as much bread, two omers for 
one man ; and all the rulers of the congregation 
came and told Moses. And he said unto 
them, This is that which the Lord hath said, 
To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath 
unto the Lord ; bake that which ye will bake 
to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe ; and 
that which remaineth over lay up for you to 
be kept until the morning. And they laid it 
up till the morning, as Moses bade ; and it did 
not stink, neither was there any worm 
therein. And Moses said, Eat that to-day ; 
for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord : to- 
day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days 
ye shall gather it ; but on the seventh day, 
which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be 
none. And it came to pass, that there w r ent 
out some of the people on the seventh day 
for to gather, and they found none. And the 
Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to 
keep my commandments and my laws ? See, 
for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, 
therefore he giveth you on the sixth day 
the bread of two days ; abide ye every man 
in his place , let no man go out of his place 
on the seventh day. So the people rested on 
the seventh day." 

From the foregoing language the following 
conclusions are inevitable : — 



20 THE SABBATH PREVIOUS TO SINAI. 

1. God had a law, of which the seventh-day 
Sabbath was a part, more than a month 
previous to proclaiming his commandments 
from Mount Sinai. 

2. He proved his people by giving them 
bread from heaven, to see whether they would 
obey his law or not, that test coming on their 
observance of the Sabbath, which, therefore, 
must be a most important part of the law. 

3. The language shows that the people had 
a knowledge of the Sabbath, and that many 
of them desired to keep it before any com- 
mandment whatever was given them as a 
people concerning it ; for the record of their 
deliverance from Egypt does not give a single 
hint concerning the Sabbath, previous to this 
point. 

4. We are constrained, therefore, to con- 
clude that when he says, " How long refuse 
ye to keep my commandments and my laws ? ' ? 
he must refer back to the original institution 
of the Sabbath at creation, the knowledge of 
which had been preserved through the pa- 
triarchs and the general acquaintance of the 
ancient nations with the Sabbath. 

5. The fall of the manna, which continued 
through the forty years of their wanderings, 
with its double portion on the sixth day of 
the week, and none upon the seventh ; its 
being kept from corruption on the Sabbath, 
while it would soon spoil on other days, 
attested which was the true creation Sabbath 
at that time, and their perfect knowledge of it. 

An objection is sometimes offered upon the 
passage, "See, for that the Lord hath given 
you the Sabbath," etc., that it belonged wholly 



THE SABBATH PREVIOUS TO SINAI. 21 

to the Israelites. But surely it must have 
had a previous existence or it would not have 
been proper to say he gave it to them. He 
did this in precisely the same sense that he 
gave himself to that people, and thus became 
God of Israel. The nations had gone into 
idolatry, or were fast doing so, rejecting alike 
the true God and the great memorial of his 
creation work, the Sabbath. He had sepa- 
rated from among them the descendants of 
Abraham, who still regarded both. From this 
time on, the Sabbath and the knowledge of 
the true God rapidly disappeared from the na- 
tions of the earth, and they became heathen ; 
while the Israelites remembered God and his 
Sabbath, and preserved the knowledge of 
each to be given again under more favorable 
auspices to the Gentile nations. 

From these considerations we cannot doubt 
that Israel regarded the Sabbath more or less 
sacredly while in Egyptian bondage. Hence 
it is not to be supposed that the Israelites 
could keep it as fully while in bondage as they 
were able to do afterwards. But it seems un- 
reasonable to conclude that they had lost all 
regard for it, or that the most pious among 
them gave it no respect. God says of their 
great progenitor, ''Abraham obeyed my 
voice, and kept my charge, my command- 
ments, my statutes, and my laws." We are 
certain that Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph followed 
the same example, and therefore must have 
kept the Sabbath. The two latter were in 
Egypt, and no doubt the rest of their kindred 
followed their example, and regarded the Sab- 
bath as much as their circumstances would 
permit. They looked back to these noble pa- 



22 THE GIVING OF TEE LAW. 

triarchs with the deepest respect. They still 
had a regard for the Sabbath, as we learn in 
Exodus 1.6, even before the giving of the law. 
Hence it was not to them a new institution. 
In this brief account it has been plainly 
shown that the Sabbath of the Lord was given 
to the human family at creation, and was well 
known to those who had any regard for the 
true God. It certainly was not a Jewish in- 
stitution ; for it existed, and was commanded 
to be observed by the God of heaven, long 
ages before a Jew lived. The Jews sprung 
from Judah, one of the sons of Jacob ; but the 
Sabbath was set apart in Eden for man's 
benefit. It was " made for man." 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SABBATH AT THE GIVING OF THE LAW. 

We come now to that sublime event in the 
history of God's dealings with mankind, the 
proclamation of his law from Sinai. In the 
sixteenth chapter of Exodus we have the 
account of his giving his Sabbath to Israel ; 
in chapter nineteen we have the full state- 
ment of his giving himself to that people by 
a solemn covenant ; and in chapter twenty, 
the history of his committing his law to them. 
This was a wonderful honor which he con- 
ferred upon the posterity of Abraham, the 
friend of God. The Jews were indeed favored 
in this respect above all the nations of the 
earth. The apostle Paul inquires, "What 
advantage, then, hath the Jew ?" and he im- 



THE SABBATH AT &IXAI. 23 

mediately answers, "Much every way ; chiefly 
because that unto them were committed the 
oracles of God." Rom. 3:1, 2. But while 
these acts honored that people, they in no way 
dishonored God, or the law, or the Sabbath, 
nor made them Jewish. 

Some thirty days after the fall of the manna 
commenced, all Israel were camped at the 
base of Sinai, waiting to hear from the mouth 
of Jehovah the ten commandments. The 
mountain burned with fire, and the smoke 
ascended like the smoke of a furnace. Thun- 
derings and lightnings and the voice of a 
trumpet exceeding loud were seen and heard. 
The solid earth trembled, "and so terrible 
was the sight, that Moses said, I exceed- 
ingly fear and quake." The voice of God 
was then heard proclaiming the "ten words 
which, not only in the Old Testament but in 
all revelation, are the most emphatically re- 
garded as the synopsis of all religion and 
morality." 

In this law he thus speaks of the Sabbath : 
"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. 
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy 
work ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of 
the Lord thy God ; in it thou shalt not do 
any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daugh- 
ter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor 
thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy 
gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven 
and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and 
rested the seventh day ; wherefore the Lord 
blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." 
Here we have a precept, "Remember the 
Sabbath day to keep it holy," then an expla- 



24 THE SABBATH AT SINAI. 

nation of the precept, and, finally, the reason 
why it is given. It begins with the word 
" Remember." The Sabbath is a commemo- 
rative institution. This word recognizes it 
as already existing ; therefore the fourth 
commandment did not originate the Sabbath. 
It plainly points us back to the creation of 
the world for its beginning. " In six days 
the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and 
all that in them is ; " " wherefore [z. <?., for 
this reason] the Lord blessed the Sabbath 
day, and hallowed it." The Sabbath is God's 
memorial of creation ; hence every intelli- 
gent creature is under obligations to keep it. 
This is far higher than any mere Jewish rea- 
son. It existed at the birth of the race. 
There is nothing about theWilderness of Sin, 
or the coming out of Egypt, in this original 
Sabbath commandment. It sets forth rea- 
sons for its observance which should convince 
every man and woman who lives on the earth. 
How forcibly these words harmonize with 
the historical account in the second chapter 
of Genesis : " God blessed the seventh day, 
and sanctified it, because that in it he had 
rested from all his work which God created 
and made." In the fourth commandment he 
states, " For in six days the Lord made 
heaven and earth," etc., " and rested the 
seventh day ; wherefore the Lord blessed the 
Sabbath day, and hallowed it." It would be 
folly and presumption to undertake to sepa- 
rate between the Sabbath of creation and 
that of the fourth commandment. 



CHAPTER V. 

WHAT THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT 
REQUIRES. 

THIS precept simply requires that day of 
the week to be kept holy on which the Cre- 
ator rested„ This, we have learned over and 
over again, was the seventh day of the week. 
He rested on one day only of the weekly 
cycle, and this rest was long ages in the past 
when the command was given, and could not, 
therefore, be changed. Hence the fourth 
commandment can be made to sanction Sab- 
batizing on no other day of the week than 
the seventh. One cannot change his birth- 
day. Independence day cannot be separated 
from the Fourth of July ; for the events 
occurring in 1776 fix it to that point, and 
they cannot now be changed. So of God's 
rest day ; the facts are such that before it 
could be changed, the whole work of creation 
would have to be gone over again. God 
rested on the seventh day of the first week 
of time. We are to rest on the same day 
of the week to keep that great fact in mem- 
ory. What would we think of the propriety 
of appointing some other day besides the 
fourth of July to commemorate the indepen- 
dence of these United States ? This would 
be no more absurd than to observe some 
other day than the seventh to answer the 
claims of the fourth commandment. 

This command is inseparably connected 
with the day of Jehovah's rest. It is the par- 

[25] 



26 THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 

ticular day of God's rest which the command 
requires to be kept holy, and no other. It is 
not a seventh part of time that the command 
specifies ; neither merely one day in seven 
after six of labor ; but it is the seventh day, on 
which God rested from the work of creation, 
which is appointed for man to keep as it 
comes to him in the weekly cycle. 

God was at this very time showing the 
people, by weekly miracles, in the fall of the 
manna, which day this creation Sabbath was. 
There could be no doubt on this point, no 
time lost. They then had the right day from 
creation. The God of all the earth was 
pointing it out to them every week. The 
true weekly cycle was therefore known at 
the time the law was given. Doubtless, it 
had always been kept by the patriarchs from 
the creation to this time, as it was by the 
Jewish people till the time of Christ. 

The speaking of the law on Sinai by the 
Creator of the universe, and his writing it on 
the imperishable tablets of stone with his own 
finger, marks a most important epoch in the 
religious progress of the race. The fact that 
the creation Sabbath was given such great 
prominence as to be made the central and 
most extensive precept in it, demonstrates 
the exalted position it occupied in the Law- 
giver's estimation. No satisfactory reason 
can be assigned for this high honor, other 
than that " the Sabbath," which "was made 
for man," was exceedingly important for his 
well-being. It was the day for religious 
benefit, for spiritual improvement, — the day 
in which to remember our Creator, and that 



FROM SINAI TO CHRIST. 27 

we are the workmanship of his hands. Mark 
this fact well : the principal object of the Sab- 
bath, according to the commandment, is not 
mere rest from physical toil. It is to be kept 
"holy;" for it was made holy at the creation. 
The facts of creation are to be remembered. 
Religious contemplation and rest from secular 
labor are the main objects of the day. It is 
God's day, and not ours. He has never given 
us this day to use for our purposes. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE SABBATH FROM THE GIVING OF THE 

LAW TILL THE RESURRECTION 

OF CHRIST. 

All theologians agree that during the lapse 
of fifteen centuries, between the giving of the 
law on Mount Sinai and the resurrection 
of our Lord, the seventh day of the week 
was observed with more or less strictness by 
the Jewish people, and was obligatory upon 
them by divine authority. We shall not, 
therefore, devote much time to its con- 
sideration during this period, but we will 
notice a few prominent points. 

That law of which the Sabbath was a part, 
spoken by God upon Mount Sinai, was written 
by his own finger on two tables of stone, thus 
indicating its enduring character ; and being 
placed within the ark in the most holy place 
of the sanctuary, beneath the mercy-seat, 
where between the cherubim, the visible pres- 



28 FROM SINAI TO CHRIST. 

ence of God rested, it was the central object 
of interest in their system of religion. Ex. 
31 : 18 ; Deut. 4 : 12, 13 ; 5 : 22 ; 10 : 1-5 ; Ex. 
40 : 20, 21. 

The Sabbath is mentioned in various script- 
ures during this long period, showing that it 
was observed by the pious among that people ; 
while there are many reproofs given by the 
sacred writers for transgressions of the Sab- 
bath law. Neh. 10:31, 33; 2 Kings 4:23; 
Amos 8 : 4-6 ; Isa. 56 : 1-8, etc. 

One striking fact showing God's regard for 
the Sabbath, is found in the prophecy of 
Jeremiah (chap. 17:20-27): " Hear ye the 
word of the Lord, ye kings of Judah, and all 
Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 
that enter in by these gates : Thus saith the 
Lord, Take heed to yourselves, and bear no 
burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by 
the gates of Jerusalem ; neither carry forth a 
burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day ; 
neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the 
Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers. 
But they obeyed not, neither inclined their 
ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might 
not hear, nor receive instruction. And it 
shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken 
unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no bur- 
den through the gates of this city on the Sab- 
bath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do 
no work therein, then shall there enter into 
the gates of this city kings and princes sitting 
upon the throne of David, riding in chariots 
and on horses, they, and their princes, the 
men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusa- 
lem ; and this city shall REMAIN FOREVER. 



FROM SINAI TO CHRIST. 29 

And they shall come from the cities of Juclah, 
and from the places about Jerusalem, and 
from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, 
and from the mountains, and from the south, 
bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and 
meat offerings, and incense, and bringing sac- 
rifices of praise, unto the house of the Lord. 
But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow 
the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, 
even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on 
the Sabbath day, then will I kindle a fire in 
the gates thereof, and it shall devour the 
palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be 
quenched." 

On this text Dr. Adam Clarke comments 
thus : " From this and the following verses 
we find the ruin of the Jews attributed to the 
breach of the Sabbath ; as this led to a neg- 
lect of sacrifice, the ordinances of religion, 
and all public worship, so it necessarily 
brought with it all immorality. This breach 
of the Sabbath was that which let in upon 
them all the waters of God's wrath." 

What could exalt the importance of the 
Sabbath more than these statements of Holy 
Writ ? Had they kept the Sabbath sacredly, 
it would have brought with it other religious 
blessings, and would have preserved their 
city and nation forever ; whereas their neglect 
of the Sabbath ultimately caused their ruin 
as a nation. They were very lax in its ob- 
servance previous to their captivity in Baby- 
lon, and were often reproved for this. But 
after their return, they were much more 
strict ; indeed, they were so particular in 
regard to its observance that they would 



30 FROM SINAI TO CHRIST. 

sometimes suffer themselves to be overcome 
rather than fight on the Sabbath. They 
would not attack their enemies on that day, 
even when their neglect to do so endangered 
their safety. Josephus gives us many in- 
stances of this kind. ("Antiquities," b. 12, 
chap. 6 ; and b. 13, chap. 1 ; also the book of 
the Maccabees.) 

Previous to the time of Christ, and after the 
Lord's prophets ceased tcr appear in their 
midst, the Jews became very fond of tradition, 
exalting it even above the authority of the 
Scriptures. Many instances of this kind are 
given in the Gospels. Christ sharply re- 
proved the Jews on this point. There was no 
requirement of God more abused by tradition 
than the Sabbath ; indeed, it was greatly 
perverted from its original design by this 
means. Dr. Justin Edwards, in his " Sabbath 
Manual," pages 214, 215, gives the following 
list : "They enumerated about forty primary 
works, which they said were forbidden to be 
done on the Sabbath. Under each of these 
were numerous secondary works, which they 
said were also forbidden. . . . Among the 
primary works which were forbidden, were 
plowing, sowing, reaping, winnowing, clean- 
ing, grinding, etc. Under the head of 
grinding was included the breaking or di- 
viding of things which were before united. 
. . . Another of their traditions was, that, as 
threshing on the Sabbath was forbidden, the 
bruising of things, which was a species of 
threshing, was also forbidden. Of course, it 
was a violation of the Sabbath to walk on 
green grass ; for that would bruise or thresh 



FROM SINAI TO CHRIST. 31 

it. So, as a man might not hunt on the Sab- 
bath, he might not catch a flea ; for that was 
a species of hunting. As a man might not 
carry a burden on the Sabbath, he might not 
carry water to a thirsty animal ; for that was 
a species of burden ; but he might pour water 
into a trough, and lead the animal to it. . . . 
Yet, should a sheep fall into a pit, they would 
readily lift him out, and bear him to a place 
of safety. . . . They said a man might 
minister to the sick for the purpose of reliev- 
ing their distress, but not for the purpose of 
healing their diseases. He might put a 
covering on a diseased eye, or anoint it with 
eye-salve for the purpose of easing the pain, 
but not to cure the eye." These foolish 
traditions, when carried out, made the Sab- 
bath a burdensome yoke instead of the merci- 
ful institution which God designed it should be, 
a delight and blessing to his creatures. Flow 
wonderfully this explains many of the refer- 
ences to the Sabbath in the Gospels ! 

The Jews found fault with Christ because 
he paid no respect to these traditions. But 
he found fault with them for making the com- 
mandments of God of none effect by their 
tradition. Matt. 15 : 4-9. The Pharisees ac- 
cused him of breaking the Sabbath, because 
he healed the sick (Matt. 12 : 9-14), cast out 
devils (Luke 4 : 33-36), gave sight to the blind 
(John 9 : 1-16), permitted his disciples to 
pluck and rub out the wheat heads and eat 
(Matt. 12 : 1-8), and directed the man to carry 
his bed — a burden like a cloak or mat — 
(Matt. 9 : 1-6), on the Sabbath day. 

Modern enemies to the seventh-day Sab- 



32 FROM SINAI TO CHRIST. 

bath have sometimes united with the ancient 
haters of Christ in thus accusing our Lord of 
being a transgressor of the law, i. e., a sinner. 
But it will be impossible to show a single 
instance where he violated the Sabbath com- 
mandment. Had he done so, he would not 
have been sinless, he could not have been our 
Saviour. The law would have condemned 
him ; for all admit that it was obligatory all 
through Christ's ministry till his crucifixion. 
We utter an emphatic protest against thus 
attributing disobedience to God, our only 
perfect Example. Just as he was about to 
be offered for the sins of others, he declared, 
"I have kept my Father's commandments." 
John 15 : 10. He certainly had not broken 
them if he had kept them, and the Sabbath 
command was one of those which he had 
kept. 

Our Saviour constantly justified his course 
against the accusers, who claimed that he or 
his disciples had broken the Sabbath. When 
they complained because his disciples had 
plucked and eaten the wheat, he declared 
they were " guiltless." Matt. 12 : 7. " Guilt- 
less" signifies " not guilty." They had done 
no wrong. They had not broken the law. 
They had only violated one of their human 
traditions. When he healed the man whose 
hand was withered (Matt. 12:9-14), they 
sought to destroy him for it ; but he declares 
his course in thus doing well was " lawful," 
t. e. y according to law. He had done no wrong. 
But they had erected their traditions, as we 
have seen, and they were angry because he 
would not regard them. The timq had come 



FROM SINAI TO CHRIST. 33 

for him to strip off these wretched perver- 
sions of God's truth, and restore the law to 
its own naked purity. He says, " In vain they 
do worship me, teaching for doctrines the 
commandments of men." Matt. 15:9. Our 
Saviour ever exalted the law of his Father, and 
taught its eternal perpetuity. Matt. 5 : 17- 
20 ; 15 : 1-20 ; 19 : 16-22 ; 22 : 34-40 ; etc., 
etc. The Sabbath is an important part 
of this law. It was his " custom " to attend 
divine service on the seventh-day Sab- 
bath, and to instruct the people. Luke 4 : 16. 
" Custom" implies a constant practice. He 
placed the most distinguished honor upon it, 
by teaching that the Sabbath was made for 
the race of man, and that he was its Lord. 
Mark 2 : 27, 28. It was not made merely for 
the Jews, but for all men. This statement 
recognizes its existence when man was first 
created. This was some twenty-three cen- 
turies before Judah, the father of the Jewish 
people, was born. Hence our Saviour teaches 
that it was in no sense a Jewish institution. 

The fact that God's only begotten Son 
claims to be the "Lord of the Sabbath," is the 
highest honor which could be conferred upon 
it. Some in these days greatly misunderstand 
and pervert this important fact. They would 
have us believe that because he is its Lord, 
therefore he might conclude to set it aside, 
change or abolish it altogether. A strange 
conclusion ! Christ is Lord of his people. 
"Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say 
well, for so I am." But we do not conclude, 
therefore, that he will destroy or abolish his 
people because he is their Lord. Sarah 

Change of Sabbath. 3 



34 CHRIST AND THE SABBATH. 

called Abraham lord. 1 Peter 3 : 6. She cer- 
tainly did not have the remotest idea he 
would destroy her because of this fact. We 
read of the House of Lords of England. This 
title of high honor does not signify that they 
are the destroyers of the people. The word 
rather .implies a protector, a guardian, one 
who will defend the rights of those over 
whom he is lord. 

The fact that the Son of God is Lord of 
the Sabbath implies that he understands its 
nature, origin, and rights better than any one 
else, and will guard them sacredly. And 
why should he not ? Christ himself made the 
world. John 1:3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2. 
He was present, and performed the very acts 
which laid the foundation of the Sabbath. 
He rested, therefore, himself from his acts of 
creation. He was also with the church in the 
wilderness when the commandments were 
spoken. Ex. 23 : 20, 21 ; Acts 7 : 37, 38 ; 1 
Cor. 10:4. The Sabbath is, then, the Lord's 
day in a special sense. Thus we have traced 
the seventh day with an unvarying sanctity 
from creation to the crucifixion of Christ. 



CHAPTER VII. 

DID OUR SAVIOUR CHANGE THE SABBATH 
BEFORE HIS ASCENSION ? 

There is a general agreement among lead- 
ing commentators and ministers of nearly all 
denominations that the Sabbath was kept 
in the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve, 



CHRIST AND THE SABBATH. 35 

and that it came down through the patriarchal 
age as an institution of Jehovah, unimpaired 
in its obligation, and that the commandment 
given on Mount Sinai simply repeats the 
events which occurred at the close of the first 
week of time. All Christians believe that the 
Israelites were under obligation to keep the 
seventh day till the resurrection of Christ ; 
but concerning its obligation since the cruci- 
fixion, opinions widely differ. Many Chris- 
tians believe that the seventh day ceased to 
be the Sabbath, and that the first day of the 
week, upon which Christ rose from the dead, 
took its place as the Sabbath, by divine ap- 
pointment, to be kept throughout the new 
dispensation. Others believe that the Sab- 
bath law was abolished, and that we have no 
sacred day of rest now binding upon us. 

Before examining the evidence usually ad- 
duced in support of Sunday-keeping, it may 
be well to look briefly to the probabilities of 
the case. Could we reasonably expect that 
the Sabbath day which had been kept for 
four thousand years, would be set aside, and 
another day, hitherto used for secular pur- 
poses, substituted ? This would indeed be an 
act requiring great changes both in the lives 
and in the habits of the people, — one which 
would attract universal attention. No one 
claims that the first day of the week had ever 
been recognized as a sacred day in any sense 
whatever among the Jewish people before the 
crucifixion of Christ. The seventh day had 
always, from the exode up to that point, 
been recognized by them as a weekly Sab- 
bath. All admit that there never was a 



36 CHRIST AND THE SABBATH. 

period in their history when it was more 
universally and strictly regarded than during 
our Saviour's ministry. Indeed, they carried 
their strictness to a great extreme, till it had 
become a burdensome yoke. 

This was the condition of things at the 
death of Christ. And the disciples and early 
believers, for several years after the crucifix- 
ion, were every one of them of Jewish birth, 
trained from their infancy to the strictest ob- 
servance of the seventh-day Sabbath. No 
Gentile was converted till Cornelius received 
a visit from St. Peter about three and a half 
years after the ascension. Acts 10. Now, 
are we to suppose that all these Jews who 
believed in Christ suddenly changed their 
Sabbath day from the one they had always 
observed, and yet no record whatever be 
made concerning it ? No command whatever 
for them to do this is claimed by any one. 
We cannot conceive of anything more im- 
probable. Within a short time after Christ's 
ascension, many thousands of pious Jews ac- 
cepted the gospel. These not only regarded 
the moral lav/ as binding, but still continued 
zealous observers of the ceremonial law. 
Many of them went so far as to teach that 
Gentiles must be circumcised also, and thus 
caused the apostles Paul and Barnabas great 
trouble. They were great sticklers for the 
rites and services of the law of Moses. Acts 
15:1, 5; chap. 21:20, 21. This feeling 
affected some even of the apostles, so that 
they requested Paul himself to show his 
respect for these Jewish customs. They ev- 
idently considered every Jewish convert 



CHRIST AND TEE SABBATE. 37 

under obligation to treat the ceremonial law 
with deference. 

Can we suppose, then, without evidence oi 
the strongest kind, that all at once they would 
drop the observance of the day they had 
always regarded as the Sabbath, and com- 
mence to observe another which they had 
never kept ? Consider what a great change 
this would imply. The Jewish people had 
complained bitterly of Jesus because he 
would not treat with respect their traditions 
concerning the Sabbath, and tried to make 
it appear that he was a Sabbath-breaker. 
Because he healed several persons of disease 
on the Sabbath day, or permitted his disciples 
to rub out the wheat heads when they were 
hungry, they made a great outcry, and tried 
to effect his condemnation. What shall we 
think, then, of the position which supposes 
that thousands of his disciples openly broke 
the Sabbath they had always kept before, and 
commenced the observance of the first day of 
the week as another Sabbath, when no 
complaint on the part of the Jews can be 
cited ? And it is true that not a word oi 
censure can be found in all the gospel history 
after Christ's crucifixion because of the 
disciples' breaking the Sabbath. When we 
consider that these very disciples were per- 
secuted bitterly by the Jews, who were most 
glad to find any occasion against them, would 
not such an omission be indeed most marvel- 
ous if the apostles were not still keeping the 
seventh-day Sabbath ? And is not this fact 
evidence most positive that they did continue 
to observe it as before ? 



38 CHRIST AND THE SABBATH. 

A change in the observance of a weekly- 
Sabbath from the one which is customary in 
any community, always marks as peculiar 
those who do so. If they rest while others are 
busy, it is quickly noticed ; if they work 
while the great majority rest, they are still 
more conspicuous. Even in this age of lax 
Sunday observance, when so many pay but 
little regard to it, let a person commence to 
keep the seventh day as the Sabbath, and he 
will be marked for miles around. He will be 
watched, and his course commented upon. 
Ministers in their pulpits will warn their 
hearers of such an example. And in some 
instances he will be arrested, if the laws will 
permit of it, even while men fish and hunt 
openly, and railway trains run regularly, and 
other business is transacted. 

What, then, would have been the effect at 
such a time of Jewish strictness in observing 
the seventh day, had the disciples no longer 
kept it, but taken up another day, never 
before held sacred, as the Sabbath ? — Every 
one of them would have been arrested and 
brought before the magistrates, charged with 
Sabbath-breaking, and most likely would have 
been either imprisoned or stoned. The law 
existing and at that time universally acknowl- 
edged as in full authority, would have been 
on the side of the jews. But not a single 
instance of the kind occurred, proving most 
emphatically that all these disciples con- 
tinued to observe the seventh-day Sabbath as 
they always had, and as the people around 
them did. Hence it is utterly improbable 
that any change in the practice of Sabbath- 



CHRIST AND THE SABBATH 39 

keeping on the part of the disciples occurred 
at the time of Christ's resurrection. 

What does the sacred record say concern- 
ing the Sabbath and first day during this 
time ? All of the four Evangelists speak of 
the Sabbath and first day in close connection 
with Christ's resurrection. If any change of 
the Sabbath was ever made by divine au- 
thority, it must have been done in connection 
with this event. All believers in the sacred- 
ness of Sunday admit this. They claim that 
previous to Christ's resurrection the seventh 
day was the Sabbath by divine appoint- 
ment ; but subsequent to that event, the first 
day of the week was ever afterward to be 
observed by Christians. They teach that 
this change was by the authority and exam- 
ple of Christ himself. 

The only historical record existing in our 
world of the events of that time, occurring 
in connection with our Lord's life, are the 
four Evangelists, — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 
John. These are emphatically Christian his- 
torians. We depend on them for our knowl- 
edge of the facts concerning the life and in- 
carnation of the Son of God. They wrote for 
the Christian world in all ages. They were 
devoted Christians themselves. They were 
inspired by the Holy Spirit ; for Christ prom- 
ised that it should bring all things to their 
remembrance, whatsoever he had said unto 
them. John 14 : 26. These things they wrote 
for our instruction ; and we must suppose 
they call things by their right names, and 
use language correctly, else their writings 
would not be reliable. It is supposed by the 



40 CHRIST AND THE SABBATH 

best authorities that Matthew wrote his Gos- 
pel about six years after Christ's ascension ; 
Mark, about ten years ; Luke, about twenty- 
eight years ; and John, about sixty-three 
years after that event. These historians, 
then, were Christians, writing- for the Chris- 
tians of all ages, and writing, too, many 
years after the Christian dispensation had 
begun, giving all the facts essential to a per- 
fect understanding of the doctrines of the 
gospel. Do they give us to understand that 
any change of the Sabbath had occurred, and 
that the first day of the week had now be- 
come the weekly Sabbath by Christ's appoint- 
ment, while the seventh day had ceased to 
be such ? Had such a change occurred, they 
were surely aware of it ; and if they do not 
mention it, we may be sure no such change 
had been made. We will now notice every 
instance in which they speak of these two 
days in connection with Christ's resurrection. 
Matt. 28:1: " In the end of the Sabbath, 
as it began to dawn toward the first day of 
the week, came Mary Magdalene and the 
other Mary to see the sepulcher." Sunday- 
keepers claim that six years before this was 
written, the Sabbath was changed and the 
first day of the week made the Sabbath. But 
Matthew states that the day before the first 
day was the Sabbath, and that the first day 
of the week did not come till the end of the 
Sabbath. Did the Spirit of God, speaking 
through this Christian historian, tell the 
truth? If so, the day before the first day of 
the week, viz., the seventh day, was still the 
Sabbath. Surely, nothing is said by this 
Evangelist implying any change. 



CHRIST AJ\ r D THE SABBATH. 41 

Mark gives this statement: " And when 
the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and 
Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had 
bought sweet spices, that they might come 
and anoint him. And very early in the morn- 
ing, the first day of the week, they came 
unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun." 
" Now when Jesus was risen early the first 
day of the week, he appeared first to Mary 
Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven 
devils." Chap. 16 : 1, 2, 9. These words, 
written some ten years after the events 
recorded, state that the Sabbath was past be- 
fore the first day of the week commenced. 
First-day writers tell us that Mark, with the 
other disciples, had been keeping the first 
day of the week as the Sabbath for ten years 
when he wrote this language. Can we be- 
lieve such a statement ? Would he apply 
"Sabbath" to a day which he did not regard as 
such, and refrain from calling the one " Sab- 
bath " which he did observe ? This would be 
most surprising, yea, utterly unreasonable. 
We must conclude that Mark still acknowl- 
edged the ancient Sabbath as identical with 
the one he observed. 

Luke speaks of these days as follow : "And 
that day was the preparation, and the Sab- 
bath drew on. And the women also, which 
came with him from Galilee, followed after, 
and beheld the sepulcher, and how his 
body was laid. And they returned, and 
prepared spices and ointments ; and rested 
the Sabbath day according to the command- 
ment. Now upon the first day of the week, 
very early in the morning, they came unto 



42 CHRIST AND THE SABBATH. 

the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they 
had prepared, and certain others with them." 
Luke 23 : 54-56 ; 24 : 1. 

Over twenty years after the supposed 
change of the Sabbath, this historian, per- 
fectly conversant with the facts of gospel 
history (Luke 1 : 3), makes these statements : 
1. The day previous to the first day of the 
week was the Sabbath; 2. It was the <k Sab- 
bath day according to the commandment;" 
3. The holy women, the affectionate com- 
panions of Christ, still kept it as such ; 4. 
They did things on the first day of the week 
they would not do on the Sabbath ; i. e., came 
to do the laborious work of embalming a dead 
body, thus showing conclusively that they 
had learned as yet of no sacredness being 
attached to Sunday. 

From these plain facts we must conclude, 
first, that Luke had not been keeping Sunday 
as the Sabbath during the twenty years since 
Christ's crucifixion, or he would have given 
it that title, and not called the day before it 
such. Secondly, If the day before the first 
day of the week was the "Sabbath day ac- 
cording to the commandment," as Inspiration 
says, then most certainly the commandment 
does not at the same time require or au- 
thorize us to keep Sunday. The same com- 
mand does not require us to keep two dif- 
ferent days. " Remember the Sabbath day 
to keep it holy;" " The seventh day is the 
Sabbath of the Lord thy God," consequently 
Sunday is not the Sabbath according to the 
commandment. Thirdly, This commandment 
does have an authoritative existence this side 
of the cross of Christ ; for it still required 



C HEIST AND THE SABBATH. 43 

these women to rest on the seventh day. It 
had not expired when Christ was crucified, 
nor had it been " nailed to the cross ;" for an 
abolished commandment can require nothing. 
If it existed one day this side of the cross, it 
still exists ; and no one claims it was abolished 
unless done at the cross. Therefore, the law 
requiring the observance of the seventh-day 
Sabbath still exists. Nothing whatever in 
this connection indicates any change of the 
Sabbath. 

John speaks as follows : " The first day of 
the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, 
when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and 
seeth the stone taken away from the sep- 
ulcher. " "Then the same day at evening, 
being the first day of the week, when the 
doors were shut where the disciples were as- 
sembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and 
stood in the midst, and saith unto them, 
Peace be unto you." John 20 : 1, 19. These 
words were written by the " beloved disci- 
ple " over sixty years after the resurrection of 
our Lord, after nearly all the other disciples 
who were personally acquainted with our 
Saviour had passed away. If he had been 
keeping Sunday as the only true Sabbath, or 
giving it any divine honor during this time, 
who can believe he would not have indicated 
it in some way ? But he does not ; he simply 
calls it by its usual secular title, — the one by 
which it had been known for four thousand 
years. He attaches no sacredness to it 
whatever. He does not call it the Sabbath 
or the Lord's day, and gives no command 
for its observance, not a hint of any superior- 



44 CHRIST AND THE SABBATH. 

ity above the working days ; nor do any of 
these writers. 

There are certain claims put forth by first- 
day writers concerning this last-mentioned 
instance, which we will notice in due time. 
We know of no first-day advocate who claims 
to find any evidence of Sunday sacredness, or 
of a change of the Sabbath, in any of these 
six instances where the first day of the week 
is mentioned, except the one last quoted. If 
the Sabbath was changed, is this not sur- 
prising? If it was ever changed by divine 
authority, here is the point where all admit the 
change must have been wrought ; yet none 
of the Christian historians who give any 
record of the events where this change is sup- 
posed to have occurred, ever mention such a 
change, or give a single hint of it. They 
wrote at different periods for about two thirds 
of a century, and gave an account of all the 
events in Christ's life and all his teachings 
which the Holy Spirit thought necessary for 
the proper instruction of the generations to 
come, but failed entirely to mention or notice 
any change of the Sabbath. On the contrary, 
they state positively, over and over, that that 
day was still the Sabbath which had been 
since God instituted it. 

We may well inquire at this point, Why 
should any person suppose the Son of God 
would desire to change the creation Sabbath ? 
This day was a memorial of the Creator, given 
to man as soon as he was made, to be kept, 
and was perpetuated through all the patri- 
archal ages. Placed in God's moral law often 
commandments by the Creator himself, pro- 



CHRIST AND THE SABBATH 45 

claimed by his voice and written by his finger 
in the imperishable tablets of stone, deposited 
in the ark under the mercy-seat — the very 
center of that whole system of worship — in the 
most holy place of the sanctuary and temple, 
honored as God's day for four thousand years, 
— why should Christ desire to change it for 
another day ? Was there lack of sympathy 
and union between the Father and the Son ? 
Jesus says, "I and my Father are one." John 
10:30. He prayed that his disciples might 
be one as he and his Father are. John 17 : 
11, 21. This oneness is not in personality, 
but in purpose, in union. They are per- 
fectly united in all they do. Would the Son 
then set aside his Father's memorial, and in- 
stitute another to take its place ? 

The prophet declares that the Messiah 
" will magnify the law, and make it honorable." 
Isa. 42:21. The Sabbath was an important 
part of that law. Would he make the law 
honorable in abolishing the Sabbath, which 
was a part of it, or changing it to another 
day ? Such changes would disgrace rather 
than honor it. It would be a strange way to 
make a thing honorable, by putting it out of 
existence. 

When the Messiah came, he declared that 
he did not come to destroy the law. "Till 
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle 
shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be 
fulfilled. Whosoever, therefore, shall break 
one of these least commandments, and shall 
teach men so, he shall be called the least [or 
be of no esteem, as Whiting translates it] 
in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5 : 17- 



46 CHRIST AND THE SABBATH. 

19. Therefore every portion of the law, 
of which the Sabbath is a part, shall 
continue till the heavens pass away. This 
must include the Sabbath which that law 
enjoins. Thus our Saviour magnified the law, 
every part of it. 

He declares he " kept his Father's com- 
mandments." John 15 : 10. Is not his exam- 
ple to be followed by all his disciples ? He 
declares himself " the Lord of the Sabbath," 
and says it was " made for man." Mark 2 : 
27, 28. The word " Lord " here must be 
used in the sense of protector or guardian, 
and not destroyer. Sarah called Abraham 
"lord" (1 Peter 3: 6); she certainly did not 
mean that he was her destroyer. We call 
Christ " our Lord ; " we mean he has authority 
over us, cares for us, and looks after our wel- 
fare. This was what he intended to do for 
the Sabbath, according to this statement. 
Most assuredly, then, he did not abolish it, or 
set it aside, or change it for a secular day. 

But would not Christ desire to change the 
Sabbath to the first day of the week, that he 
might have a memorial set apart to commem- 
orate his own work ? Many claim this. We 
reply, The seventh-day Sabbath answered 
this very purpose. Who was the active agent 
in making this world, in calling into existence 
this creation ? — The Son of God. He it was 
who "made the worlds." Heb. 1:2. "For 
by him were all things created, that are in 
heaven, and that are in earth." Col. 1 : 16. 
God "created all things by Jesus Christ." 
Eph. 3 : 9. " All things were made" by Christ, 
the Word. John 1 : 3. Therefore the seventh- 



CHRIST AND THE SABBATH. 47 

day Sabbath, which is a memorial of the 
work of creation, Christ himself taking six 
days in which to perform this grand orig- 
ination, commemorates the work of the Son 
as much as that of the Father. We thus see 
beauty and propriety in the language of 
Jesus, when calling himself the "Lord of 
the Sabbath." The miserable perversion of 
the institution by the Jewish traditions, from 
an institution of gratitude, mercy, and refresh- 
ment, to a burdensome yoke, demanded such 
action from one of the founders of the Sab- 
bath. 

One of the last instructions of our Lord to 
his disciples, about two days before his cruci- 
fixion, shows his interest in them and his 
solicitude for the Sabbath : " Pray ye that 
your flight be not in the winter, neither on 
the Sabbath day." Matt. 24:20. He was 
foretelling the terrible destruction of Jerusa- 
lem, and giving his disciples directions how 
to escape it. Eleven hundred thousand Jews, 
rejecting that instruction, miserably perished. 
He says, " When ye shall see Jerusalem com- 
passed with armies, then know that the des- 
olation thereof is nigh." Luke 21 : 20. Some 
little time previous to the final surrounding 
of Jerusalem by the Roman army under 
Vespasian and Titus, this sign was fulfilled. 
Cestius, another general, did compass Jerusa- 
lem with a Roman army, and according to 
Josephus (" Jewish Wars," book 2, chap. 19) 
might easily have taken it; but " he retired 
from the city without any reason." Where- 
upon, every Christian left the city, and fled 
away to Pella, sixty miles distant. When the 



48 CHRIST AND THE SABBATH 

Romans returned to invest the city, the dis- 
ciples were in safety. 

Christ foretold this event, and instructed 
them to pray that the time of this flight might 
not occur upon the Sabbath day or during 
the winter season. In the latter case it would 
have involved much suffering, as they were to 
go in the greatest haste. No other reason 
can be given why they were instructed to 
pray that their flight might not be on the 
Sabbath, than the Lord's desire that they 
should not be compelled to break it in order 
to escape. For nearly forty years, the dis- 
ciples in Judea, as instructed by the Lord of 
the Sabbath, were to plead with God that 
their flight might not occur on the Sabbath. 
This proves, 1. That there was to be a Sab- 
bath in the year A. D. 70, when Jerusalem 
was destroyed ; 2. That this was certainly the 
Sabbath which was in existence when Christ 
spoke these words, viz., the seventh-day Sab- 
bath, as it would be most absurd to sup- 
pose that Christ spoke of any other day than 
the one they were then keeping ; 3. That we 
have here the strongest indication of the 
Saviour's desire that his disciples should keep 
the ancient Sabbath after the Christian dis- 
pensation had commenced. If he wished 
them to keep it, is not his desire just as great 
that^w^ should keep it ? Could such, an in- 
junction be found in the words of Christ, that 
the disciples should thus regard Sunday, how 
eagerly would first-day observers claim it as 
evidence in their favor ! 

In view of these considerations, we again 
ask, Why should any one conclude that Christ 



SUNDAY SACREDXESS. 49 

had the remotest idea of instituting another 
Sabbath, and setting aside the ancient Sab- 
bath of four thousand years' standing ? No 
intimation of it is given in a word of his or 
of his historians. That ancient Sabbath had 
answered all the wants of God's patriarchs, 
prophets, and holy men for all these ages. 
He had told the Jews that if they would keep 
it sacred, their city should stand forever. 
Jer. 17 : 25. Christ himself had observed it 
all his life, as had all his disciples. What 
reason can be assigned for its being changed ? 
Do not Christians as well as Jews need to 
keep in mind the great work of creation ? 
We must conclude, therefore, that no such 
change occurred. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CONSIDERATION OF REASONS ASSIGNED FOR 
SUNDAY SACREDNESS. 

We will now briefly notice the leading 
reasons given for the supposed change of the 
Sabbath. We quote John 20:19: "Then 
the same day at evening, being the first day 
of the week, when the doors were shut where 
the disciples were assembled for fear of the 
Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and 
saith unto them, Peace be unto you." It is 
supposed by many that these disciples were 
assembled to commemorate the resurrection 
of Jesus, and that when he came among them 
and said, " Peace be unto you," he indicated 
his approval of their act in assembling upon 

Change op Sabbath. 4 



50 SUNDAY 8ACREDNE88. 

that day, and thus honored the first " Chris- 
tian Sabbath." But does the language jus- 
tify such an inference ? From this and other 
scriptures we draw these conclusions : — 

1. The reason the disciples were together 
was "for fear of the Jews," and not to cele- 
brate Christ's resurrection. 2. The place of 
their meeting was undoubtedly the upper 
room, where they all abode (Acts 1 : 13), and 
not the temple or any other house of worship. 
3. The time of this meeting must have been 
very late in the day, just before sunset. (By 
the Bible mode of reckoning time, the day 
closed at evening, or sundown. Gen. 1:5; 
Lev. 23 : 32 ; Mark 1 : 32.) We are forced to 
this conclusion from the facts stated by the 
other Evangelists, and because St. John de- 
clares it was evening. Luke gives an account 
of the journey of two disciples to Emmaus, 
seven and a half miles, that very afternoon, 
and of how Jesus made himself known to 
them as they sat at meat," after convers- 
ing with them and explaining the Scripture 
predictions concerning himself. Then " he 
vanished out of their sight." This was " to- 
ward evening," and "the day was far spent." 
Then they "returned to Jerusalem, and found 
the eleven gathered together, and them that 
were with them." As they spoke of what 
had transpired, Jesus appeared. This must 
be the identical meeting spoken of by John, 
for he uses the same expression, "Peace be 
unto you," and it was at the same time of 
day. He then asked them, " Have ye here 
any meat ?" and ate in their presence. Mark 
records the same meeting. He gives a brief 



SUNDAY SACREDNESS. 51 

account of the two as they walked and went 
into the country, and of his appearing unto 
them ; and states that the other disciples did 
not believe them. " Afterward he appeared 
unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and up- 
braided them with their unbelief and hard- 
ness of heart, because they believed not them 
which had seen him after he was risen." 
Mark 16 : 12-14. 4. We are forced to con- 
clude that they could not have been cele- 
brating or honoring Christ's resurrection, for 
they did not believe it had occurred. 5. We 
can see clearly how the disciples regarded 
this first day of the week, as two of them 
walked to Emmaus and back, a distance of 
fifteen miles, and Jesus made the same jour- 
ney, and not a hint did he give that such a 
use of the day was wrong. A strange way 
to celebrate the day, if it was the first " Chris- 
tian Sabbath"! They simply regarded it as 
a secular day, and nothing more. 

The little flock of disciples were in a retired 
place, feaiing the Jews, who had just crucified 
their Lord. A few of their number ventured 
out to the sepulcher to embalm the Saviour's 
body, and were astonished to find that it was 
not there. A few others went into the 
country. What a contrast to the origin of 
the Sabbath of the Lord ! The Creator 
"rested" upon it himself; then he " blessed" 
it, and set it apart to a sacred use, evidently 
by telling Adam how to keep it. His exam- 
ple and command were both given in its 
favor. But how different with this first day, 
on which Christ rose ! If there is any divine 
authority for keeping Sunday, this day must 



52 SUNDAY SACBEJDNESS. 

have been the first of the new order of Sab- 
baths. But it was a busy day. Christ gave 
no example of resting upon it ; he gave no 
command for his disciples to rest, nor did he 
hold any religious service on that day. Some 
of his disciples traveled fifteen miles on foot 
upon it, he keeping them company in thus 
laboring. Not a hint is given in all the Bible 
that it should be used in any other manner 
than as a day for labor. Who can believe 
that God would in such a manner set aside 
the ancient Sabbath of his own appointment, 
and put in its place a new day, never giving 
a hint that the old one was abolished or the 
new inaugurated ? 

We next notice the claim that it was cus- 
tomary for Christ to meet with his disciples 
on the first day of the week, thus giving evi- 
dence of his regard for it, and proof of its 
sacredness. " And after eight days again his 
disciples were within, and Thomas with them ; 
then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and 
stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto 
you." John 20 : 26. 

This scripture, in connection with the one 
just noticed, is relied upon to prove that it 
was the practice of Jesus to meet with his 
disciples on the first day of the week, between 
his resurrection and his ascension. It will be 
noticed that the record does not say that it 
was on the first day of the week when Christ 
had this interview with Thomas and the dis- 
ciples. The statement is that it was " after 
eight days" from the previous meeting. That 
previous meeting was at the very close of the 
first day, most of it probably occurring on 



SUNDAY SACREDNESS 53 

the day following. It is claimed that the 
expression " after eight days" signifies just a 
week. But what proof is there of this ? " After 
seven days" is the expression employed by In- 
spiration when defining a week. Compare 
1 Chron. 9:25 with 2 Kings 11:5. The 
expression " after six days" (Matt. 17:1) is 
given by another writer, " about an eight 
days after." Luke 9 : 28. On what grounds, 
then, shall we conclude that " after eight 
days " really means seven days or less ? 
From the closing hour of Sunday, a period 
of time covered by the expression " after 
eight days," if the language be taken liter- 
ally, would reach at least to the Monday 
night or Tuesday morning of the next week. 
How, then, can one rightfully claim that this 
meeting occurred on the first day of the 
week ? It must be evident that this meeting 
was held because of the presence of Thomas, 
who was absent on the previous occasion, 
and not to honor any particular day of the 
week. Had the latter object been in view, 
the record would most certainly tell us what 
day of the week it was, and not use such an 
indefinite expression as " after eight days." 

But even if we grant all our first-day friends 
claim, viz., that the meeting in question did 
occur on the first day of the week, what evi- 
dence is thereby furnished in behalf of Sun- 
day sacredness ? Our Saviour ascended to 
heaven on Thursday, just forty days from his 
resurrection. Acts 1 : 3. Another promi- 
nent meeting held with his disciples was on 
a fishing occasion. John 21 : 3-25. This was 
the third occasion that Christ manifested 



54 SUNDAY SAGBEDNESS. 

himself to his disciples. Verse 14. Our 
friends will hardly claim that this visit oc- 
curred on Sunday. 

There were five first-days between the 
crucifixion and the ascension. No mention 
whatever is made of any of these five first- 
days, excepting the first one, on which he 
rose from the dead. If we admit that " after 
eight days" occurred on the second of those 
five first-days, which we are sure is not true, 
what could that prove ? The evidence would 
then come far short of proving a custom, since 
the two following meetings — the fishing occa- 
sion and the ascension — were not on that day. 
A "custom" is a long-continued practice. 
More than two instances are required to con- 
stitute a "custom." The "custom" of our 
Saviour was to honor the Sabbath of the 
Lord, and teach the people on that day. 
Luke 4 : 16. It is utterly impossible to es- 
tablish such a custom of his with reference 
to Sunday. 

The pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the 
day of pentecost is supposed by many to 
be an evidence in favor of first-day sacred- 
ness. The Bible record is as follows : " And 
when the day of pentecost was fully come, 
they were all with one accord in one place. 
And suddenly there came a sound from 
heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it 
filled all the house where they were sitting." 
Acts 2 : 1, 2. 

It is well to notice that not a word is said 
in the text about the first day of the week. 
Yet this is regarded by the adherents of 
Sunday sacredness as one of the strongest 



SUNDAY SACREDXESS. 55 

evidences in its behalf. It is claimed that 
the disciples were assembled on this first-day 
Sabbath, and that the Lord poured out his 
Spirit in honor of the day and of their act, 
thus adding to its sanctity. To this claim 
we answer : 1. There is no evidence what- 
ever that there was any first-day Sabbath at 
that time to commemorate. 2. Their being 
assembled on that day was nothing more 
than had occurred on each of the previous 
nine days, as they were all commanded by 
the Saviour, " Tarry ye in the city of Jerusa- 
lem, until ye be endued with power from on 
high." Luke 2-1:49. They had been thus 
waiting "with one accord in prayer and sup- 
plication," about one hundred and twenty in 
number. Acts 1 : 12-26. 3. There is no 
hint from the connection that this occurred 
on the first day of the week. If the object 
of God had been to honor that day, he most 
assuredly would have given us information 
that the occurrence transpired then. 4. 
This outpouring of the Holy Spirit came, 
evidently, as the antitype of the feast of pen- 
tecost. This is doubtless the reason why that 
day is mentioned. 

A strong effort is made by some to prove 
that pentecost came that year upon the first 
day of the week, though this is disputed by a 
large number of the ablest authors, them- 
selves observers of Sunday. The word pen- 
tecost signifies "the fiftieth," so many days 
being reckoned from the passover. Olshau- 
sen, the celebrated German commentator, 
says : " Now since, according to the accounts 
given regarding the time of the feast, the 



56 SUNDAY SAC REDNESS. 

passover, in the year of our Lord's death, fell 
so that the first day of the feast lasted from 
Thursday evening at six o'clock till Friday 
evening at the same hour, it follows, of course, 
that it was from Friday evening at six o'clock 
that the fifty days began to be counted. The 
fiftieth day fell, therefore, it appears, upon 
Saturday." Jennings, in " Jewish Antiqui- 
ties," concludes his arguments by saying, 
" The day of pentecost must fall on the Sat- 
urday, or the Jewish Sabbath." Dr. Albert 
Barnes says : " If the views of the Pharisees 
were followed, and the Lord Jesus had with 
them kept the passover on Thursday, as many 
have supposed, then the day of pentecost 
would have occurred on the Jewish Sabbath, 
that is, on Saturday. It is impossible to 
determine the truth on this subject." Dean 
Alford in his "New Testament for English 
Readers," says : " The question on what day 
of the week this day of pentecost was, is beset 
with the difficulties attending the question of 
our Lord's last passover. ... It appears prob- 
able, however, that it was on the Sabbath, i. e., 
if we reckon from Saturday, the 16th of Ni- 
san." Prof. H. B. Hackett, D. D., professor of 
Biblical Literature in Newton Theological In- 
stitute, in his "Commentary on the Original 
Text of the Acts," p. 40, thus remarks : "It 
is generally supposed that this pentecost, 
signalized by the outpouring of the Spirit, 
fell on the Jewish Sabbath, our Saturday." 
Other eminent authors — Lightfoot, Kuinol, 
Hitzig, Wiesler, etc. — take the same position. 
We conclude, therefore, that taking the au- 
thority of first-day authors themselves, it 



SUNDAY SACKEDNESS. 57 

cannot be established that pentecost came 
upon the first day of the week at this time, 
and if it could be so established, it would be 
no evidence in behalf of Sunday sacredness. 

Another claim made in behalf of the first- 
day Sabbath is this : Redemption is greater 
than creation, therefore we should observe 
the day of Christ's resurrection in preference 
to that of the Creator's rest. In reply we 
would say, that this is merely human opinion. 
Not a syllable of Scripture can be found to 
sustain it. Who knows that redemption is 
greater than creation, since both require om- 
nipotent power ? Is man prepared to decide 
the comparative greatness of works that he 
is wholly powerless to perform, and of which 
he cannot have any adequate conception ? 
And who knows that God would have us 
keep a Sabbath to celebrate redemption ? 
Not a hint has he given us in his word to that 
effect. Would he not have told us so, had he 
wished us to do it ? Paul says that the Holy 
Scriptures thoroughly furnish us unto all 
good works. 2 Tim. 3 : 17. As the keeping 
of Sunday as a Sabbath in honor of the work of 
redemption is in no instance implied in God's 
word, we must conclude that it is not a "good 
work." Every religious institution of divine 
appointment, has for it the authority of God's 
word. But there is none for the observance 
of a day to commemorate redemption. Such 
observance must therefore be merely "will 
worship." But we inquire, Is redemption yet 
completed ? — Certainly not, while our earth 
groans under the curse, and the people of 
God are either waiting in the grave for the 



58 SUNDAY SACBEDNESS. 

final resurrection, or are living in a world of 
wickedness, longing for immortality. It is 
most surely out of place to appoint a memo- 
rial to commemorate a work yet unfinished. 
Christ our Advocate still intercedes for us, 
while we " groan within ourselves, waiting 
for the adoption , to wit, the redemption of 
our body." Rom. 8 : 23. Our friends are at 
least eighteen centuries too early in appoint- 
ing their redemption Sabbath. 

And even if a day were to be appointed to 
commemorate Christ's work in redemption at 
his first advent, should it not be the day of 
his crucifixion rather than of his resurrection ? 
The Bible nowhere says we have redemption 
through his resurrection ; but it does say, 
"In whom w T e have redemption through his 
blood" Eph. 1 : 7. Again, " Thou wast slain, 
and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood." 
Rev. 5 : 9. Christ shed his blood (the great 
agent in our redemption) on Friday, the sixth 
day cf the w T eek. The death of Christ is the 
most marvelous event ever beheld in this 
world. It is not surprising that God should 
raise his Son from the grave after he had died 
for the sins of men ; but it is mercy most 
astonishing that he should ever consent that 
his "only begotten Son" should die that 
ignominious death on the cross. Shall we 
therefore keep Friday as a Sabbath to com- 
memorate this sublime act of mercy and 
love ? — Oh, no ! God has instituted his own 
memorials to commemorate this as well as 
other important events. The Lord's supper 
answers this purpose. "For as often as ye 
eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show 



SUNDAY SACREDNESS. 59 

the Lord's death till he come." 1 Cor. 11 : 26. 
In baptism we have a beautiful and appro- 
priate memorial of Christ's burial and resur- 
rection. " Know ye not, that so many of 
us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were 
baptized into his death ? Therefore we are 
buried with him by baptism into death ; that 
like as Christ was raised up from the dead by 
the glory of the Father, even so we also 
should walk in newness of life. For if we 
have been planted together in the likeness of 
his death, we shall be also in the likeness of 
his resurrection." Rom. 6 : 3-5 ; Col. 2 : 12. 
How beautifully fitting is this act to com- 
memorate Christ's resurrection ! 

We shall find, if w r e investigate the subject 
of God's memorials in his word, that there is 
alw r ays peculiar fitness — a likeness, a similar- 
ity — between the memorial and the thing 
commemorated by it. This principle is illus- 
trated by the creation Sabbath, the rest sig- 
nifying a completed work ; the rite of cir- 
cumcision, a circle cut in the flesh, may sig- 
nify the surrounding of Abraham's seed with 
peculiar providences as his peculiar people ; 
the feast of the passover and the sprinkling 
of the blood, bringing forcibly to view the 
fleeing out of Egypt, and the act of the 
destroying angel in passing over the houses 
of the children of Israel, thus saving their 
first-born ; the feast of tabernacles, bringing 
to view their dwelling in tents ; the joyful 
sending of gifts in the feast of purim, the glad- 
ness felt at their escape from the malice of 
Haman. So of the Lord's supper and bap- 
tism. Every Bible memorial is appropriate. 



60 SUNDAY SACREDNESS. 

But how about this man-made memorial of 
Sunday-keeping ? What fitness is there in 
keeping as a Sabbath a day of rest every 
seven days to celebrate the resurrection of 
Christ, as a part of the work of redemption, 
yet incomplete ? We have seen that the res- 
urrection day was a busy one. The disciples 
hunted here and there to find Christ, two of 
them traveling fifteen miles on foot, Jesus 
doing the same. It was a day of anxiety, 
for they did not believe he was risen until 
just as the day was closing. So there 
could have been no religious meetings or 
public speaking. What likeness is there 
between the day most Christians keep as 
a Sabbath, and the original day they pro- 
pose to keep in memory by it ? In order 
for it to be a fitting memorial, it should 
be true that the work of redemption occupied 
six days, and that Christ rested the day fol- 
lowing — something no person ever claimed. 
As baptism is a memorial of Christ's resur- 
rection, we would in that case have two 
memorials of the same event— a thing unpre- 
cedented in the Scriptures. We therefore 
conclude that the claim that Sunday is set 
apart to commemorate redemption, is absurd, 
and entirely contrary to the facts in the case. 



**£&i£2*> 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE SABBATH DURING THE LIVES OF 
THE APOSTLES. 

The Acts of the Apostles is supposed to 
have been written over thirty years after the 
resurrection of Christ. The book contains 
the principal historical facts of the apostolic 
church in the days when Christians had the 
greatest purity and most glorious success. 
It has been an invaluable treatise to all Chris- 
tians for eighteen centuries. In it is given a 
practical illustration of the principles of 
gospel religion, exemplified in the labors of 
all the apostles, and it is in this book that 
we obtain a view of their understanding of 
Christ's teaching ; for they continued to teach 
and enforce what they had learned from him. 
They did not claim to originate new doc- 
trines. They were to go " into all the world, 
and preach the gospel" that they had learned 
from Christ. 

What was their attitude toward the Sab- 
bath ? Did they treat it as an existing in- 
stitution, as sacred writers in the Old Testa- 
ment treated it, and as Christ and themselves 
had done previous to the resurrection ? Or 
did they call the first day of the week the 
Sabbath, and enforce that as a new institution, 
taking the place of the ancient Sabbath ? 
Most certainly if Sunday did thus enter into 
the place of the creation Sabbath at the res- 
urrection of Christ, the historical record of 

[61] 



62 APOSTOLIC TIMES. 

the first thirty years would give many in- 
stances where this new Sabbath is mentioned, 
and it would narrate conflicts between the ad- 
herents of the new day and the old, and tell 
of the struggles this new day had to obtain a 
position as a Sabbath. We should have state- 
ments of efforts of leading men in the church, 
instructing the people concerning the impor- 
tance of their keeping sacredly the new day, 
and have many references to it. We should 
have some command given concerning it, and 
plain statements of its binding obligation. 
Such was the case with other ordinances, 
doctrines, and requirements which came into 
force with the gospel dispensation. For 
example, notice baptism. Christ commands 
it. Matt. 28 : 19 ; Mark 16 : 16. St. Peter does 
the same. Acts 2:38; 10:48. Many in- 
stances of its performance are given in which 
the mode, administration, and necessity of it 
are intimated. Acts 8:12, 36-38; 16:33; 
22:16; Rom. 6:3-5; Col. 2:12, etc. The 
Lord's supper was instituted by Christ him- 
self, and commanded by divine authority. 
Matt. 26 : 26-29 ; Mark 14 : 22-25 ; Luke 22 : 
15-17 ; 1 Cor. 11 : 20-26. Other illustrations 
of the same principle might be presented. 

Do we find such illustrations of the ob- 
ligation of Sunday-keeping ? All its adher- 
ents claim that it originated with the Chris- 
tian dispensation. Not a single command 
can be found for it, not an instance where it 
was observed as a Sabbath, not a hint that 
Christ had bestowed upon it any sanctity. 
Indeed, it is mentioned only once in the 
whole book of Acts : " And we sailed away 



APOSTOLIC TIMES. 63 

from Philippi after the days of unleavened 
bread, and came unto them to Troas in five 
days ; where we abode seven days. And 
upon the first day of the week, when the dis- 
ciples came together to break bread, Paul 
preached unto them, ready to depart on the 
morrow, and continued his speech until mid- 
night. And there w r ere many lights in the 
upper chamber, where they were gathered 
together. And there sat in a window a cer- 
tain young man named Eutychus, being 
fallen into a deep sleep ; and as Paul was long 
preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell 
down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. 
And Paul w r ent down, and fell on him, and 
embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves ; 
for his life is in him. When he therefore was 
come up again, and had broken bread, and 
eaten, and talked a long while, even till break 
of day, so he departed. And they brought 
the young man alive, and w r ere not a little 
comforted. And we went before to ship, and 
sailed unto Assos, there intending to take in 
Paul ; for so had he appointed, minding him- 
self to go afoot. And when he met with us 
at Assos, we took him in, and came to 
Mitylene." Chap. 20 : 6-14. We give this 
narrative in full, because it is considered by 
first-day observers as one of the strongest 
evidences in behalf of Sunday. This is the 
only instance given in the New Testament 
where a religious meeting is said to have 
been held on the first day of the week. 

We learn from this scripture and its con- 
nection the following facts : This w r as a night 
meeting, "many lights" being necessary, as 



64 APOSTOLIC TIMES, 

it continued till daybreak ; Eutychus fell out 
of the window about midnight, Paul went down 
and healed him, after which he continued 
to speak till daylight, then departed on his 
journey to Assos, nineteen and a half miles 
distant, crossing the peninsula ; Luke and his 
companions, with the ship, " went before, " i. e., 
started earlier, intending to go around this 
point of land, and take in Paul when he 
reached Assos. In this way Paul gained 
several hours in which he could speak to the 
disciples. To correctly understand this nar- 
rative, it becomes important to ascertain 
whether this meeting occurred on what we 
now call Saturday night or on Sunday night. 
It is very easily shown that it must have been 
the former. We have already stated that in 
the Bible reckoning of time the civil day com- 
menced at the going down of the sun. "The 
evening and the morning were the first day" 
(Gen. 1 : 5), and the same statement is made 
of other days of the creation week also. The 
Bible is consistent with itself throughout on 
this subject, and it is impossible to find in it 
any other time for beginning the civil day. 
" From even unto even shall ye celebrate 
your Sabbath." Lev. 23 : 32. The Sabbath 
commenced at the same time as the other 
days. The evening began at the going down 
of the sun. " At even, when the sun did set." 
Mark 1 : 32. 

No intelligent person will dispute the fact 
that the Jews, from time immemorial to the 
present day, have begun the civil day at the 
going down of the sun, The " Bible Dic- 
tionary" of the American Tract Society 



APOSTOLIC TIMES. 65 

says, " The Hebrews began their day in the 
evening." We use Roman time, which came 
into vogue among Christians some centuries 
this side of the Christian era. What, then, 
must we conclude ? — In order for this night 
meeting to have been on the first day of the 
week, it would be on what we call Saturday 
night. That first day began at sundown. 
These facts, then, must follow : Paul traveled 
on foot to Assos, nineteen and one half miles, 
during the daytime of that Sunday ; and 
Luke and his companions spent still more of 
the hours of that day in traveling to the same 
place by ship. This conclusion is inevitable 
from the record. It is so plain that a large 
number of first-day observers have felt com- 
pelled to admit its truthfulness. Certainly 
they would not have done so if they had not 
been convinced of it. We quote from a few 
of them as follows : — 

H. B. Hackett, D. D., Professor of Biblical 
Literature in Newton Theological Institution, 
in his comments on Acts 20:7, says: "The 
Jews reckoned the day [in its broad sense. 
Gen. 1 : 5] from evening to evening, and on 
that principle the evening of the first day of 
the week would be our Saturday evening. If 
Luke reckons so here, as many commentators 
suppose, the apostle then waited for the ex- 
piration of the Jewish Sabbath, and held his 
last religious service w T ith the brethren at 
Troas at the beginning of the Christian Sab- 
bath, i. e., on Saturday evening, and conse- 
quently resumed his journey on Sunday morn- 
ing." Prof. Hackett tries, however, to make 
it appear that Luke reckons according to the 
pagan method in this instance. 

Change of Sabbath 5 



66 APOSTOLIC TIMES. 

Dr. John Kitto says: " The evening of the 
first day of the week would be our Saturday 
evening. If Luke reckoned so here, as many 
commentators suppose, the apostle then 
waited for the expiration of the Jewish Sab- 
bath, and held his last religious service with 
the brethren at Troas at the beginning of the 
Christian Sabbath, i. e. y on Saturday evening, 
and consequently resumed his journey on 
Sunday morning." — Cyclopedia of Biblical 
Literature^ art. Lord's Day. 

In Conybeare and Howson's "Life and 
Epistles of the Apostle Paul," it is said, 
speaking of this meeting, " It was the even- 
ing which succeeded the Jewish Sabbath. 
On the Sunday morning the vessel was about 
to sail." And of the journey that day it 
says : " He [Paul] pursued his lonely road 
that Sunday afternoon in spring, among the 
oak woods and the streams of Ida." — People's 
edition of 1878, p. 629. Prof. McGarvey, of the 
Disciple (Church of Christ) denomination, 
says : "I conclude, therefore, that the breth- 
ren met on the night after the Jewish Sab- 
bath, which was still observed as a day of 
rest by all of them who were Jews or Jewish 
proselytes ; and considering this the begin- 
ning of the first day of the week, spent it in 
the manner above described. On Sunday 
morning Paul and his companions resumed 
their journey." — Commentary on Acts. 

Other authors might be quoted ; but let it 
be noticed that these are all writers who 
observe Sunday themselves. They would 
not make these admissions unless their sense 
of truth required it. They express the fact 



APOSTOLIC TIMES. 67 

that " many commentators " hold the same 
opinion. Prof. McGarvey admits that all the 
Jewish disciples and proselytes still regarded 
the Sabbath sacredly as a day of rest. That 
was in the year 59, some twenty- six years 
after the resurrection. According to the 
Bible chronology, all the apostles, Paul in- 
cluded, with all the companions of Christ, 
still regarded the seventh day as sacred. 
Surely this is a good admission, coming from 
a first-day commentator. These apostles had 
not learned, then, that another Sabbath had 
taken its place. 

We see, therefore, that this scripture, which 
on the whole is regarded as the strongest text 
to be found in the Bible in behalf of Sunday, 
proves just the opposite from what it is cited 
to prove. This instance is really the second 
mention of the first day of the week we have 
seen thus far in the historical record, the day 
of Christ's resurrection being the first. Then 
some of the disciples walked fifteen miles. 
Here the great apostle to the Gentiles travels 
on foot nineteen and one half miles, while his 
companions travel still farther on the ship. 
It is strange that such instances should be 
thought to furnish evidence in behalf of the 
institution of a new Sabbath. 

Should any desire to imitate apostolic ex- 
ample concerning Sunday, they should hold 
meetings on Saturday night, and work during 
the light part of the day ; for this is precisely 
what Paul and his companions did. 

We have now noticed every instance where 
the first day of the week is mentioned in the 
New Testament, excepting one, which we 



68 APOSTOLIC TIMES. 

here present: "Now concerning the collec- 
tion for the saints, as I have given order to 
the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon 
the first day of the week let every one of you 
lay by him in store, as God hath prospered 
him, that there be no gatherings when I 
come." 1 Cor. 16 : 1, 2. 

This scripture is claimed as evidence for 
Sunday, on the ground that public collections 
were taken up on that day ; hence there must 
have been public meetings held. Therefore 
the first day of the week was the day for pub- 
lic assemblies of Christians. But does this 
language say that public collections were 
taken up on the first day of the week ? The 
whole question turns upon the expression, 
"lay by him in store." Would the act of 
taking money from the purse or pocket and 
placing it in a box or plate, be laying by him, 
i. e. y by himself? — Most certainly it would be 
just the opposite ; it would be putting the 
money away from himself. The money would 
be gone. This is evidently an act to be done, 
not in a public gathering, but at home. This 
is most certainly the meaning of the original 
Greek. Various translations collected by 
J. W. Morton, late Presbyterian missionary 
to Hayti, read as follows : "Greenfield, in his 
Lexicon, translates the Greek term, 'by 
one's self, i. e n at home ;' two Latin versions, 
the Vulgate and that of Castellio, render it 
'with one's self, at home;' three French 
translations, those of Martin, Osterwald, and 
De Sacy, 'at his own house, at home;' the 
German of Luther, 'by himself, at home;' 
the Dutch the same as the German ; the 



APOSTOLIC TIMES. 69 

Italian of Diodati, ' in his own presence, at 
home ; ' the Spanish of Felipe Scio, ' in his 
own house ; ' the Portuguese of Ferreira, 
'with himself;' the Swedish, 'near himself.' 
Dr. Bloomfield renders it ' by him, Fr., chez soz> 
at home ;' the Douay Bible, " Let every one 
of you put apart with himself." Mr. Sawyer 
thus translates it : " Let each one of you lay 
aside by himself.'' Dr. Justin Edwards, in his 
Family Testament of the American Tract 
Society, p. 286, thus gives it: "Lay by him- 
self in store ; at home ; that there be no gath- 
erings ; that their gifts might be ready when 
the apostle should come." Surely all these 
authorities, and others which might be cited, 
are sufficient to settle the question beyond all 
controversy, that there is no public collec- 
tion intended, but on the contrary that the 
act required was to be done at home. 

Again, the act required is not such an one 
as would be consistent with Sabbath sacred- 
ness. They were to lay by them on the first 
day of the week as God had prospered them. 
To tell how God had prospered them during 
the week past, if a business man, would neces- 
sitate the reckoning of accounts. Our first- 
day friends would hardly relish the idea of 
finding some of their church members who 
were merchants, busy reckoning up columns 
of figures to ascertain their amount of pros- 
perity during the past week, on what they 
call the "Christian Sabbath." Yet this is 
precisely what this command of the great 
apostle to " lay by him in store, as God had 
prospered him " would necessitate in the case 
of any one who had large business trans- 
actions. 



70 APOSTOLIC TIMES. 

Here we see the same fact stated which 
has been apparent in the other cases where 
the first day of the week is mentioned. Sec- 
ular labor is spoken of as being done on that 
day ; and in this last instance the apostle 
required it. Surely this is not consistent 
with Sabbath holiness. We therefore con- 
clude that this last mention of the first day 
utterly fails to prove the practice of holding 
religious meetings on the first day of the 
week in the apostolic age, and fails to give 
the slightest sanction to any claim of sacred- 
ness. 

We next notice references made to the 
Bible Sabbath during the days of the apostles. 
"But when they departed from Perga, they 
came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the 
synagogue on the Sabbath day, and sat down." 
Acts 13 : 14. After this Paul gave a masterly 
discourse to those assembled, proving that 
Jesus is the Christ. We learn from this 
scripture that the day St. Luke calls the Sab- 
bath some twelve years after, which many 
claim had been changed, was still the seventh 
day, the very day when the Jews met in their 
synagogues. At the close of this discourse, 
we read: "And when the Jews were gone 
out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought 
that these words might be preached to them 
the next Sabbath." "And the next Sabbath 
day came almost the whole city together to 
hear the word of God." Acts 13:42, 44. 
Here again the inspired word of God posi- 
tively declares that the seventh day, on 
which the Jews met in their synagogues, was 
the Sabbath day in the year A. D. 45. 



APOSTOLIC TIMES. 71 

We are well aware how first-day advocates 
try to avoid the force of this argument by 
saying, " It was the Jewish Sabbath, of 
course," and " the apostles went into the 
synagogue to preach, simply because they 
could not get opportunity to speak to the 
Jews any other day," and "the apostles did 
not hold religious meetings with the Gentiles 
on the Jewish Sabbath," etc. But the very 
fact that they in every case place the word 
"Jewish" before the word "Sabbath," when 
speaking of the seventh day of the week, as 
a term of reproach, while they speak of the 
first day of the week as the Sabbath, without 
any such qualifying phrase, shows the sense 
in which they speak of that day, as distin- 
guished from the manner in which inspired 
men speak of it many years this side of the 
cross. Why did not St. Luke speak of the 
day as the "Jewish Sabbath," if his practice 
then was the same as that of many Christian 
ministers now ? We could not persuade these 
estimable men to speak of the seventh day as 
the Sabbath day before their congregations in 
public. They never do it. They would feel 
at once that all who heard them would draw 
the conclusion that they considered it a 
sacred day, should they do so. The ob- 
servers of the seventh day always call it 
"the Sabbath day," because they regard it 
as such. 

How shall we explain the fact that St. 
Luke, whenever he has occasion to speak of 
it, always calls it by the same name that its 
modern observers do, and never calls it the 
Jewish Sabbath, except on the supposition 



72 APOSTOLIC TIMES, 

that he observed it himself, and considered 
no other day of the week the Sabbath day ? 
This writer is a Christian, writing for the 
Christian dispensation. He calls those insti- 
tutions which he names, what they really are. 
He always calls the seventh day, when he 
has occasion to speak of it, " the Sabbath," 
just as writers had been doing for four thou- 
sand years, showing that no change had 
occurred. He never in a single instance 
calls the first day of the week by any such 
title, or by any sacred title whatever ; yet 
many good people believe that he had been 
keeping the first day of the week as the Sab- 
bath for thirty years, and not keeping the 
seventh day as such. We leave it for first- 
day observers to explain such inconsistency. 
We next notice the claim that the apostles 
did not hold meetings on the seventh-day 
Sabbath, except with the Jews, for the sake of 
reaching them. Acts 13 : 42 implies that this 
meeting on the first Sabbath mentioned, was 
a mixed meeting of Jews and Gentiles ; for 
the latter requested that these words might* 
be repeated to them on the next Sabbath. 
This shows at least that they were somewhat 
conversant with the discourse. What an ex- 
cellent opportunity this presented to the 
apostle to inform them of the first-day Sab- 
bath, if there had been any instituted ! How 
readily our modern ministers would have 
remarked, "You need not wait a whole 
week ; to-morrow is the Christian's Sabbath, 
the day in which we instruct the Gentiles." 
But not a word of this do we find. They 
waited a whole week ; then nearly the whole 



APOSTOLIC TIMES. 73 

city turned out to hear the gospel. Luke 
says it was " the next Sabbath day " when 
this great gathering occurred. It was evi- 
dently a week later than the other meeting. 
If it was the next Sabbath day, then most 
certainly Sunday was not a Sabbath day. 
Here was a Gentile meeting on the Sabbath 
day, and no one can truthfully deny it. Here 
we have two consecutive Sabbath days in 
which the great apostle held religious ser- 
vices, instructing far more Gentiles than 
Jews. 

We next notice Acts 16 : 13 : " And on the 
Sabbath we went out of the city by a river 
side, where prayer was wont to be made ; 
and we sat down and spake unto the'women 
which resorted thither." Here we have an- 
other religious meeting of the apostle to the 
Gentiles, in the Gentile city of Philippi, on the 
seventh-day Sabbath. As the Greek lan- 
guage puts it, it was " the Sabbath clay" so 
called by a Christian writer. 

"Now when they had passed through Am- 
phipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessa- 
lonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews. 
And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto 
them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with 
them out of the Scriptures." Acts 17 : 1, 2. 
Twenty years after the resurrection, we here 
have another instance, in a Gentile city, of 
Paul's using the ancient Sabbath as a day for 
religious meetings, and of Luke's declaring 
to the Christian world that the day in which 
the Jews met in their synagogues was still 
the Sabbath day of holy writ. Another very 
significant remark made by the historian is 



74 APOSTOLIC TIMES. 

that it was "Paul's manner" thus to use the 
Sabbath day for religious teaching. In this 
respect he followed Christ's example per- 
fectly. The same writer declares that it was 
our Saviour's "custom" to do the same thing. 
Luke 4 : 16. All agree that our Lord in doing 
this was keeping the Sabbath commandment, 
and showing proper respect for the worship 
of God on that day. The Sabbath was or- 
dained for that purpose, as a day for religious 
worship. It would be impossible to show a 
particle of difference between Paul's " man- 
ner" of treating the Sabbath and Christ's 
" custom." They pursued the same course 
toward the Sabbath, because their relation to 
Jehovah's rest day was just the same. It was 
the day appointed for religious instruction. 
It was obligatory in both cases. 

Another very significant point in connec- 
tion with this text of scripture, is the fact that 
here we have an account of the origin of the 
Thessalonian church, to which Paul addressed 
one of his epistles. We cannot question but 
what the members of this church were ob- 
servers of the seventh-day Sabbath. Paul, in 
his letter to them, uses this language : " For 
ye, brethren, became followers of the churches 
of God, which in Judea are in Christ Jesus." 
1 Thess. 2 : 14. "And ye became followers of 
us, and of the Lord, having received the word 
in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost, 
so that- ye were ensamples to all that believe 
in Macedonia and Achaia." 1 Thess. 1 : 6, 7. 
Paul, we know, was an observer of the Sab- 
bath ; so also was our Saviour. Jesus him- 
self declares, "I have kept my Father's com- 



APOSTOLIC TIMES. 75 

mandments." The Sabbath command was 
one of these. 

St. Paul, when he arrived in Rome, A. D. 62, 
called the " chief of the Jews together," and 
said unto them, " I have committed nothing 
against the people, or customs of our fathers." 
Acts 28 : 17. None will deny that the obser- 
vance of the Sabbath was one of these 
"customs." Hence we are forced to conclude 
that Paul kept the Sabbath. These Thes- 
salonian brethren followed Paul and Christ ; 
therefore they also were observers of the 
Sabbath. The brethren of Macedonia and 
Achaia followed the same example. The 
churches of Judea even, according to the 
admission of many first-day commentators, 
still kept the Sabbath. We see, there- 
fore, that the early Gentile Christians im- 
itated them in this practice. We note, 
also, this fact, which is brought to view 
in the text we are considering : here were 
three more Sabbath days in which Paul held 
religious meetings, making six, with the three 
previously mentioned. 

We next notice Paul's visit to Corinth. 
"And he reasoned in the synagogue every 
Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the 
Greeks. . . . And he continued there a year 
and six months, teaching the word of God 
among them." Acts 18 : 4, 11. Paul met for a 
portion of the time in the synagogue ; but after 
the Jews "opposed," he continued to teach 
the people in the house of Justus, "whose 
house joined hard to the synagogue." The 
record states that he reasoned in the syn- 
agogue, teaching Gentiles as well as Jews 



76 APOSTOLIC TIMES. 

" every Sabbath," and that he continued in 
the synagogue and the house which "joined 
hard to " it, a year and six months. There 
would be seventy-eight Sabbaths in that 
period. These, with the six previously noted, 
would make some eighty-four Sabbaths in 
which Luke records the fact of Paul's holding 
meetings in Gentile cities with both "Jews 
and Greeks." Paul was the great apostle to 
the Gentiles ; and all these instances of Sab- 
bath meetings mentioned, occurred in Gentile 
cities and not in Judea. Is not this signi- 
ficant ? It would have been much more easy 
to explain away, if it had been in the Jews' 
own country where all these meetings on the 
Sabbath occurred. We find no instances in 
which any secular work whatever occurred in 
connection with any of these Sabbath meet- 
ings,— no long journeys traveled, or reckon- 
ing of accounts. 

Sunday observers cite Paul's night meeting 
in Acts 20, and dwell upon it with much 
satisfaction. Yet he and his companions 
used the light part of that day for ordinary 
secular business. One night meeting they 
consider strong evidence for first-day sacred- 
ness ; yet that very instance really counts 
more for the Sabbath than for the first day ; 
for the disciples remained there over the Sab- 
bath, and as soon as the light of the first day 
dawned, they started on their long journey 
toward Jerusalem. They did not start on the 
Sabbath, but they did on Sunday. Doubtless 
the reason why that jiight meeting was men- 
tioned, was the most remarkable occurrence 
of raising the dead man Eutychus. This was 



APOSTOLIC TIMES. 77 

one of the greatest miracles that Paul ever 
wrought. 

But here we have scores of religious meet- 
ings on a day which Inspiration declares to be 
the Sabbath, in which Jews and Gentiles are 
instructed in the truths of the gospel ; and 
yet men teach that it was not the Sabbath 
day, but the first day, which is never in a 
single instance called the Sabbath. So hard 
is it to see a truth which involves a cross. 

We next notice a text which is claimed by 
first-day observers as evidence in behalf of 
Sunday, but which we claim affords excellent 
proof in behalf of the Lord's holy Sabbath. 
" I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and 
heard behind me a great voice, as of a trum- 
pet." Rev. 1 : 10. This language is supposed 
to have been written in the year A. D. 96, 
sixty-five years after the resurrection of 
Christ. It is claimed that by the term 
" Lord's day" is meant the first day of the 
week, the day on which our Saviour rose 
from the dead. But the very point to be 
proved is assumed. We want evidence of a 
substantial character that the first day of the 
week is the "Lord's day." Not a hint from 
the Scriptures is ever cited to prove this im- 
portant point. No sacred writer ever calls it 
such. In every case where it is mentioned, 
as we have seen in eight instances, it has the 
same secular title. St. John himself, in writ- 
ing his Gospel, some two or three years later 
than the book of Revelation was written, as 
is generally supposed, calls it twice " the first 
day of the week." John 20 : 1, 19. If he had 
intended the first day of the week to be un- 



78 APOSTOLIC TIMES. 

derstood by the term " Lord's day," why did 
he not call it so still later when he wrote his 
Gospel ? 

No good reason can be assigned for calling 
it the Lord's day. The Lord never intimated 
any more regard for it than for any other 
secular day. The fact that he rose from the 
dead on it does not entitle it to any higher 
regard from us than the sixth day, the day of 
his crucifixion, the one on which our salvation 
was purchased by his spilt blood ; or Thurs- 
day, the day on which he ascended, to become 
our high priest. Not one well-authenticated 
instance can be found where Sunday was 
ever called the Lord's day before the year A. 
D. 194, just about one hundred years later 
than the time when this was written by St. 
John, — a point where Christianity had become 
much corrupted. 

We confidently claim that this " Lord's 
day " is God's holy Sabbath day. For four 
thousand years it had been constantly recog- 
nized as a day peculiarly sacred to the Lord. 
He rested upon it, and set it apart to a holy 
use, placing his blessing upon it. Gen. 2 : 3. 
In the law of God he said, " Remember the 
Sabbath day to keep it holy. . . . The sev- 
enth day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy 
God. . . . The Lord blessed the Sabbath day, 
and hallowed it." Ex. 20 : 8-11. The prophet 
says, " If thou turn away thy foot from the 
Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy 
day!' Isa. 58 : 13. Surely this language un- 
mistakably identifies which day is "the 
Lord's day." It can be none other than the 
one he has always claimed. 



APOSTOLIC TIMES. 79 

But it is sometimes objected that in the 
original Greek, the term "Lord" used in the 
text refers to Christ, and not to God the 
Father ; that it is not Jehovah's day, but a 
special day which Christ claims as his own. 
Very well ; of what day does Christ claim to 
be the Lord ? — " The Son of man is Lord also 
of the Sabbath." Mark 2 : 28. Is not the day 
of which Christ says he is Lord the Lord's 
day? So we believe. Does he anywhere say 
he is Lord of the first day of the week ? — 
Not a text is ever quoted by any one to show 
it. We therefore conclude that the day on 
which St. John had this heavenly vision was 
the Lord's holy Sabbath. Let it be noticed 
by all that at the very close of the first cen- 
tury of the Christian era, the Lord has a day 
which he still calls his own, which we have 
shown to be the holy Sabbath. All days, 
then, are not alike. God claims at the very 
close of the canon of inspiration, in the book 
of Revelation, as he did at its beginning, in 
the book of Genesis, that one day is his own. 

We will quote one text more concerning 
the time the holy Sabbath will continue, with 
which to close the Biblical argument of this 
question: " For as the new heavens and the 
new earth, which I will make,shall remain be- 
fore me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed 
and your name remain. And it shall come to 
pass, that from one new moon to another, 
and from one Sabbath to another, shall all 
flesh come to worship before me, saith the 
Lord." Isa. 66:22, 23. The new heavens 
and the new earth are created a thousand 
years after the coming of Christ. 2 Peter 3 : 



80 APOSTOLIC TIMES. 

8-13; Rev. 20:4-15; 21:1. The new earth 
will be the abode of the saved to all eternity. 
The holy city, the new Jerusalem, will be in 
it, and there, also, will be the tree of life, 
bearing its twelve manner of fruits monthly. 
Rev. 22 : 2. To this blessed metropolis of the 
new creation will the saints of God come each 
month, to partake of its fruits, and each week, 
on the holy Sabbath, to worship God. 

That blessed day which God set apart at 
creation to serve as a beautiful memorial of 
the works of the Creator, will be still more 
gladly kept when sin and the curse have been 
forever abolished. Why should not this 
blessed institution ever exist as a reminder of 
the glory of God in creation ? Nothing could 
be more fitting. The word of God positively 
declares that the holy Sabbath — that Sabbath 
with which the prophet Isaiah was well 
acquainted — will be kept in the reign of the 
new heavens and the new earth. What, then, 
is the conclusion which the Scriptures compel 
us to make in reference to the continuance of 
the Bible Sabbath ? The great majority of 
Christians admit that for four thousand years 
the seventh day was the only weekly Sab- 
bath. Here we find the same day being kept 
in Eden restored, continuing to all eter- 
nity. Can we suppose that an intermission of 
about two thousand years occurred between 
these two eternities ? and that another Sab- 
bath was set up to take the place of this great 
memorial of the work of Christ and Jehovah, 
which God has ordained to be kept in the 
eternal world ? Can we think such an event 
probable ? Such a conclusion would be un-. 
philosophical, absurd, preposterous. 



SECULAR HISTORY. 81 

The prophet of God in holy vision beholds 
the Sabbath of the Lord carried far beyond 
this world of sin. Thus the Holy Scriptures 
place the seventh-day Sabbath like a grand 
arch at the beginning of the race of man, 
spanning the six thousand years of human 
probation, and reaching into a renovated 
world after sin is forever destroyed. No 
place is left for another weekly Sabbath to 
come in. Few realize the vast importance of 
the Sabbatic institution. It is the golden 
clasp which binds man to his Maker. It keeps 
in memory the true God as the^creator of all 
things. Had man ever observed it in the 
true spirit, idolatry could never have had an 
existence. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE TWO REST DAYS IN SECULAR 
HISTORY. 

In the consideration of the Sabbath and its 
supposed change, we have now reached an 
important point. We have had, hitherto, the 
inspired, unerring word of the Lord as our 
text-book of authority ; and we need not 
discount a single statement it has made on 
the subject under investigation. We have 
found the Sabbath of the Lord still standing 
with undiminished obligation, at the close of 
the canon of inspiration, and at the end of 
the first century of the Christian era. Now 
we enter upon a very different order of things. 
We know that a change of the Sabbath has 

Change op Sabbath. 6 



82 SECULAR HISTORY. 

been attempted, for the majority of professed 
Christians are found observing the first day 
of the week and not the seventh. As no ac- 
count of a change is to be found in the Bible, 
we must look for it this side of the close of 
the first century. 

The authorities to which we must now look 
will be the so-called " Christian Fathers,'' ec- 
clesiastical historians, the decrees of emperors, 
and the decisions of councils. We shall find 
much of fable, contradictory statements, un- 
reliable traditions, and doctrines never taught 
in the Bible. In the second, third, and fourth 
centuries, great changes came into the church. 
It ceased to be the humble, pure church of 
Christ and the apostles, but became rather a 
worldly, popular church, paying more heed to 
ambition, vain show, the love of supremacy, 
the traditions of men, and heathen notions, 
than to the word of God. The great errors 
which finally culminated in the full develop- 
ment of the Catholic Church, here had their 
rise. 

It is not the design of this comparatively 
brief treatise to notice all the points and 
questions raised on the subject of the Sabbath 
and its change, by the multitude of authors 
and authorities who have discussed this sub- 
ject. The " History of the Sabbath," by Eld. 
J. N. Andrews, published by the Review and 
Herald 'Office, Battle Creek, Mich., does this in 
a most thorough and conclusive manner ; and 
all who desire to see every argument raised 
by first-day authors fully considered, should 
certainly secure this book. It is a work of 
great thoroughness, comprising 548 pages. 



SECULAR HISTORY. 83 

Our object in this treatise is to present, in 
as brief a manner as possible, a connected 
view of the attempted change of the day, and 
the authority for it. The authorities we 
quote will, in almost every case, be those who 
kept the first day of the week for the Sabbath, 
as far as they kept any day, and not those 
who favored the seventh day. 

Let us briefly notice some predictions of 
the Scriptures concerning this period upon 
which we are now entering, as well as the 
statements of leading Protestant authors con- 
cerning the character of these early times. 
" For I know this, that after my departing 
shall grievous wolves enter in among you, 
not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves 
shall men arise, speaking perverse things, 
to draw away disciples after them." Acts 20 : 
29, 30. " For the time will come when they 
will not endure sound doctrine ; but after 
their own lusts shall they heap to themselves 
teachers, having itching ears ; and they shall 
turn away their ears from the truth, and shall 
be turned unto fables." 2 Tim. 4 : 3, 4. " Let 
no man deceive you by any means, for that day 
shall not come, except there come a falling 
away [literal Greek, apostasy] first, and that 
man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, 
who opposeth and exalteth himself above all 
that is called God, or that is worshiped ; so 
that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, 
showing himself that he is God. . . . For the 
mystery of iniquity doth already work ; only 
he who now letteth [hindereth] will let, un- 
til he be taken out of the way. And then 
shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the 



84 SECULAR HISTORY. 

Lord shall consume with the spirit of his 
mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness 
of his coming." 2 Thess. 2:3,4, 7, 8. 

These scriptures are very explicit in pre- 
dicting a great apostasy in the church, the 
beginning of which was already existing in 
Paul's day. It is not enough, therefore, to 
trace a doctrine or practice back almost or 
even quite to the days of the apostles ; for 
great errors had their rise in that very period. 
The real question is, Does such a doctrine 
owe its origin to the Bible ? The Roman 
Catholic Church holds many doctrines which 
are very ancient, and yet are wholly contrary 
to the Bible. The prophet Daniel foretells 
the rise of a power which should undertake 
great changes even in the law of God. " And 
he shall speak great words against the Most 
High, and shall wear out the saints of the 
Most High, and think to change times and 
laws [the times and the law, Revised Ver- 
sion] ; and they shall be given into his hand 
until a time and times and the dividing of 
time." Dan. 7 : 25. The best commentators 
agree that the Catholic power is here in- 
tended. The fourth beast mentioned in the 
vision of the seventh chapter of this book, is 
said to be the " fourth kingdom." Verse 23. 
This was certainly the Roman kingdom. 
Rome under the popes was more marvelous 
than Rome under the Csesars. This power 
was to " think to change" the times and the 
law of God. This expression clearly refers 
to the Sabbath of God's law. Will history 
bear out this prediction ? 

According to the best Protestant authors, 



SEC UL All HISTORY. 85 

what was the character of the religious 
changes occurring during the second and 
third centuries, and what credence should we 
give to the so-called Christian Fathers ? 

"From Adrian [a. d. 117] to Justinian, . . . few 
institutions, either human or divine, were permitted to 
stand on their former basis."— Gibbon's Decline and Fall 
of the Roman Empire, chap. 44, par. 7. 

Says Robinson, the Baptist historian : — 

"Toward the latter end of the second century, most 
of the churches assumed a new form, the first simplicity 
disappeared, and insensibly, as the old disciples retired to 
their graves, their children, along with new converts, 
both Jews and Gentiles, came forward and new-modeled 
the cause." — Eccl. Researches, chap. 6, p. 51. Ed. 1792. 

Says Mr. Bower, in his " History of the 
Popes" : — 

" To avoid being imposed upon, we ought to treat 
tradition as we do a notorious . . liar, to whom we give 
no credit unless what he says is confirmed to us by some 
person of undoubted veracity. . . . False and lying 
traditions are of an early date, and the greatest men 
have, out of a pious credulity, suffered themselves to be 
imposed upon by them." — Vol. 1, p. 1, Phila. Ed. 1847. 

Dr. Adam Clarke uses the following lan- 
guage concerning the Fathers : — 

"We should take heed how we quote the Fathers in 
proof of the doctrines of the gospel, because he who 
knows them best, knows that on many of those subjects 
they blow hot and cold." — Autobiography of Adam 
Clarke, p. 134. 

Martin Luther says :— 

"When God's word is by the Fathers expounded, con- 
structed, and glossed, then in my judgment it is even 
like unto one that straineth milk through a coal sack, 
which must needs spoil the milk and make it black. 



86 SECULAR HISTORY. 

Even so, likewise, God's word of itself is sufficiently pure, 
clean, bright, and clear ; but through the doctrines, 
books, and writings of the Fathers, it is very surely 
darkened, falsified, and spoiled/' — Table Talk, p. 228. 

Says Du Pin, one of the most celebrated 
and reliable of the Catholic historians: — 

"It is a surprising thing to consider how many spu- 
rious books we find in antiquity, nay, even in the first 
ages of the church." 

Dr. Clarke says again of the Fathers, in his 
comments on Proverbs 8 : — 

" But of these we may safely state that there is not a 
truth in the most orthodox creed that cannot be proved 
by their authority, nor a heresy that has disgraced the 
Romish Church, that may not challenge them as its abet- 
tors. In points of doctrine, their authority is, icith me, 
nothing. The word of God alone contains my creed." 

We could multiply statements of this kind 
from eminent authors almost ad infinitum. 
We have introduced them simply to show 
how unreliable for authority on religious 
duties these Fathers are, and what an age of 
corruption was that portion of the historical 
field we are considering. Our only safety is 
to take the Bible alone as authority in mat- 
ters of religion. By it Paul says the man of 
God may be " thoroughly furnished unto all 
good works." 

It is in such an age as this, and from such 
authorities as these Fathers, that the principal 
evidence of a change of the Sabbath is de- 
rived. The ante-Nicsean Fathers are those 
Christian writers who flourished after the 
time of the apostles and before the Council of 
Nicaea, A. D. 325. As we have seen, the best 
of authorities, like Dr. Clarke, declare that 



SECULAR HISTORY. 87 

the Fathers sustain the heresies of the Roman 
Church, as well as many of the essential truths 
of the gospel. In short, they lived in that age 
of transition from the pure truths of the word 
of God to that great system of corruption 
which developed into Roman Catholicism. 

To bring briefly before the reader a com- 
prehensive statement relative to the bearing 
of the Fathers upon the subject of the change 
of the Sabbath, we quote from Andrews's 
14 History of the Sabbath," pp. 206, 207 :— 

"But next to the deception under which men fall 
when they are made to believe that the Bible may be 
corrected by the Fathers, is the deception practiced upon 
them as to what the Fathers actually teach. It is asserted 
that the Fathers bear explicit testimony to the change of 
the Sabbath by Christ as a historical fact, and that they 
knew that this was so because they had conversed with 
the apostles, or with some who had conversed with 
them. It is also asserted that the Fathers called the 
first day of the week the Christian Sabbath, and that 
they refrained from labor on that day as an act of obe- 
dience to the fourth commandment. 

"Now it is a most remarkable fact that every one of 
these assertions is false. The people who trust in the 
Fathers as their authority for departing from God's com- 
mandment, are miserably deceived as to what the Fathers 
teach. 

"1. The Fathers are so far from testifying that the 
apostles told them Christ changed the Sabbath, that not 
even one of them ever alludes to such a change. 

"2. No one of them ever calls the first day the Chris- 
tian Sabbath, nor, indeed, ever calls it a Sabbath of any 
kind. 

"3. They never represent it as a day on which ordi- 
nary labor was sinful; nor do they represent the ob- 
servance of Sunday as an act of obedience to the fourth 
commandment. 

"4. The modern doctrine of the change of the Sab- 
bath was therefore absolutely unknown in the first cen- 
turies of the Christian Church/' 



88 THE SABBATH AFTER CHRIST. 

We are now prepared to notice the steps 
by which the Sabbath gradually lost its posi- 
tion of eminence, and also how the first day 
of the week gradually usurped its place. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE SABBATH OBSERVED FOR SEVERAL 
CENTURIES AFTER CHRIST. 

WE shall now show from the testimony of 
those who observed the first day of the week, 
as far as they observed any day as a Sabbath, 
that the seventh day continued to be kept for 
several centuries after Christ, but with a sa- 
credness gradually decreasing in proportion 
to the rising influence of Sunday, until the 
Roman Catholic Church became so power- 
ful that, wherever it had sway, it put down 
the Sabbath and exalted the first day of the 
week to its place in the observance of the 
people. This, as we shall see, was a gradual 
work, taking several centuries for its accom- 
plishment. 

Says the learned Mr. Morer, of the Church 
of England : — 

"The primitive Christians had a great veneration 
for the Sabbath, and spent the day in devotion and 



TEE SABBATE AFTER CEBIST. 89 

sermons. And it is not to be doubted but that they 
derived this practice from the apostles themselves, 
as appears by several scriptures to that purpose." — 
Dialogues on the Lord's Day, p. 189. 

A learned English writer of the seven- 
teenth century, William Twisse, D. D., thus 
states the early history of these two days : — 

" Yet for some hundred years in the primitive church, 
not the Lord's day only, but the seventh day also, was 
religiously observed, not by Ebion and Cerinthus 'alone, 
but by the pious Christians also, as Baronius writeth 
and Gomarus confesseth, and Rivet also, that we are 
bound in conscience, under the gospel, to allow for 
God's service a better proportion of time than the Jews 
did under the law, rather than a worse." — Morality of 
the Fourth Commandment, p. 9, London, 1641. 

The learned Giesler also states the same 
fact, and that this practice of observing the 
seventh day was not confined to the Jewish 
converts : — 

" While the Jewish Christians of Palestine retained 
the entire Mosaic law, and consequently the Jewish 
festivals, the Gentile Christians observed also the Sab- 
bath and the passover, with reference to the last scenes 
of Jesus' life, but without Jewish superstition." — Feci. 
Hist., Vol. 1, chap. 2, sec. 30. 

These statements are certainly very ex- 
plicit as proof of the continued observance 
of the Sabbath in the centuries immediately 
succeeding the apostolic age, and these evi- 
dences come from those who could have no 
prejudice in favor of the seventh day. 



90 THE S ABB ATE AFTER CRRIST. 

But we notice others of similar import. 
Coleman speaks as follows : — 

"The last day of the week was strictly kept in con- 
nection with that of the first day for a long time after 
the overthrow of the temple and its worship. Down 
even to the fifth century the observance of the Jewish 
Sabbath was continued in the Christian church, but 
with a rigor and solemnity diminishing until it was 
wholly discontinued. " — Ancient Christianity Exempli- 
fied, chap. 26, sec. 2. 

In the above extract, this writer speaks of 
the first day's being observed also. In sub- 
sequent language he tells us how it was re- 
garded in these early ages : — 

"During the early ages of the church it was never 
entitled 'the Sabbath,' this word being confined to the 
seventh day of the week, the Jewish Sabbath, which, 
as we have already said, continued to be observed for 
several centuries by the converts to Christianity. " — 
Anc. Christ. Exem., chap. 26, sec. 2. 

He tells us again in a few words how the 
first day of the week, which he, like many 
other first-day writers calls "the Lord's day," 
though without good authority for so doing, 
came gradually to work its way into the po- 
sition of the true Sabbath : — 

"The observance of the Lord's day was ordered 
while yet the Sabbath of the Jews was continued ; nor 
was the latter superseded until the former had acquired 
the same solemnity and importance which belonged, at 
first, to that great day which God originally ordained 
and blessed. . . . But in time, after the Lord's day was 



THE SAB BATE AFTER CHRIST. 91 

fully established, the observance of the Sabbath of the 
Jews was gradually discontinued and was finally de- 
nounced as heretical/' — Idem. 

We shall see that the facts of history fully 
sustain the statement of this first-day writer. 
The Sunday festival at first only asked toler- 
ation ; but as it gradually gained strength, it 
undermined the Sabbath, and finally its ad- 
herents denounced its observance as heretical. 

Bishop Jeremy Taylor, of the Church of 
England, a man of great learning, also bears 
testimony incidentally to the same fact, — the 
observance of the Sabbath for centuries after 
Christ, — though he was a decided opponent 
of Sabbatic obligation : — 

"It [the Lord's day] was not introduced by virtue of 
the fourth commandment, because they for almost three 
hundred years together kept that day which was in that 
commandment/' — Ductor Dubitantium, part 1, book 2, 
chap. 2, rule 6, sec. 51. 

We quote another testimony from a member 
of the English Church, Edward Brerewood, 
professor in Gresham College, London : — 

"The ancient Sabbath did remain and was observed, 
together with the celebration of the Lord's day, by the 
Christians of the East Church, above three hundred 
years after our Saviour's death ; and besides that, no 
other day for more hundreds of years than I spake of 
before, was known in the church by the name of the 
Sabbath but that." — Learned Treatise of the Sabbath, p. 
77, Oxford, 1631. 



92 THE SABBATH AFTER CHRIST. 

These testimonies should certainly satisfy 
reasonable minds of the continued observance 
of the Sabbath of the Lord for a long time 
after the death of the apostles. As will be 
shown when we consider the growth of the 
Sunday institution, it gradually increased from 
several causes, till it became a rival of the 
ancient day. By the end of the third century 
it had acquired almost an equality with the 
Sabbath itself in the regard of many of the 
Gentile Christians. In the same ratio, the 
latter was decreasing in relative importance 
in the minds of many. 

In the beginning of the fourth century an 
event occurred which vastly accelerated this 
process, and raised the first day and corre- 
spondingly depressed the seventh day in the 
balancing scale of esteem in the minds of the 
people. This was an edict of the emperor 
Constantine, issued A. D. 321, which required 
all trades-people and towns-people to rest on 
"the venerable day of the sun," though it did 
not forbid labor in sowing and planting in the 
country. This is the first law commanding 
rest on the first day of the week, which can 
be found on record in all history, either human 
or sacred. We shall fully consider it when 
we notice the steps by which the first-day rose 
to authority. The effect of this law upon the 
ancient Sabbath was greatly to decrease the 
regard of the people for it, and to turn the 
tide of influence strongly in favor of its rival. 



THE SABBATH AFTER CHRIST. 93 

On this point an able writer, Mr. Cox, re- 
marks : — 

"Very shortly after the period when Constantine 
issued his edict enjoining the general observance of 
Sunday throughout the Roman empire, the party that 
had contended for the observance of the seventh day, 
dwindled into insignificance. The observance of Sunday 
as a public festival, during which all business, with the 
exception of rural employments, was intermitted, came 
to be more and more generally established ever after this 
time, throughout both the Greek and Latin churches. 
There is no evidence, however, that either in this, or at a 
period much later, the observance was viewed as deriving 
any obligation from the fourth commandment ; it seems 
to have been regarded as an institution corresponding in 
nature with Christmas, Good Friday, and other festivals 
of the church ; and as resting with them on the ground 
of ecclesiastical authority and tradition." — Sabbath Laws 
Examined, pp. 280, 281. 

However, even with this powerful influence 
of the great Roman emperor thrown into the 
scale against the ancient Sabbath, it still con- 
tinued to share public esteem for a long time. 
It took a strong combination of influences, 
secular and religious, entirely to obliterate 
from the public memory this grand ancient 
institution, the Sabbath of creation ; but the 
gradual disintegrating influences continued to 
wear away its God-given sanctity. A heathen 
Roman emperor, a tyrant, a murderer, one 
who killed his own wife and his own son and 
many other innocent persons, took one prom- 
inent step to debase it. The Sabbath never 



94 THE SABBATH AFTER CHRIST. 

fully recovered from this blow, although it 
was still regarded as a day for religious meet- 
ings. Dr. Heylyn, speaking of the Sabbath 
in Constantine's time, says : — 

"As for the Saturday, that retained its wonted credit 
in the Eastern churches, little inferior to the Lord's day, 
if not plainly equal ; not as the Sabbath, think not so ; 
but as a day designed unto sacred meetings/' — History 
of the Sabbath, part 2, chap. 3, sec. 5. 

After Constantine's time, there seems to 
have been in a measure a revival of interest 
in, and reverence for, the Sabbath in the 
minds of many Christians, at least in the 
Eastern churches, where the influence of the 
Roman Church was less powerful. 

Prof. Stuart, in speaking of the period from 
Constantine to the Council of Laodicea, A. D. 
364, says : — 

"The practice of it [the keeping of the Sabbath] was 
continued by Christians who were jealous for the honor 
of the Mosaic law, and finally became, as we have seen, 
predominant throughout Christendom. It was supposed 
at length that the fourth commandment did require the 
observance of the seventh-day Sabbath (not merely a 
seventh part of time) ; and reasoning as Christians of 
the present day are wont to do, viz., that all which be- 
longed to the ten commandments was immutable and 
perpetual, the churches in general came gradually to 
regard the seventh-day Sabbath as altogether sacred." — 
Appendix to Gurney's History, etc., of the Sabbath, pp. 
115, 116. 

The church had by this time become 
greatly corrupted. When Constantine pro- 



THE SABBATH AFTER CHRIST. 95 

fessed Christianity, it became the popular 
religion. In order to serve in the army or in 
the courts, or hold any official position, men 
had to profess to be Christians ; and Gibbon 
declares that many did this, but continued to 
worship their idols in secret. Vast numbers 
joined the church. The bishops sought high 
positions, wealth, and place, dressing in gor- 
geous attire, and there was very little resem- 
blance indeed between religion then and in 
the days of persecution. What did this great 
Catholic Church now do, when they saw the 
Sabbath once more gaining some of its former 
sanctity, and an interest in it reviving ? — They 
held a great council at Laodicea, and, among 
other things, passed a decree that Christians 
should not rest on the seventh-day Sabbath, 
and pronounced a curse upon all who should 
do so. We present the following statements 
of eminent authors on this point : — 

Mr. James, in addressing the University of 
Oxford, used this language : — 

"When the practice of keeping Saturday Sabbaths, 
which had become so general at the close of this century, 
was evidently gaining ground in the Eastern church, a 
decree was passed in the council held in Laodicea [a. d. 
364], ' that members of the church should not rest from 
work on the Sabbath day, like Jews, but should labor 
on that day, and preferring in honor the Lord's day ; then, 
if it be in their power, should rest from work as Chris- 
tians/ " — Sermons on the Sacraments and Sabbath, pp. 
122, 123. 

Prynne thus testifies : — 

" It is certain that Christ himself, his apostles, and 
the primitive Christians for some good space of time, did 
constantly observe the seventh-day Sabbath, . . . the 
Evangelists and St. Luke in the Acts ever styling it the 



96 THE SABBATH AFTER CHRIST 

Sabbath day, . . . and making mention of its . . . sol- 
emnization by the apostles and other Christians, ... it 
being still solemnized by many Christians after the 
apostles' times, even till the Council of Laodicea, as 
ecclesiastical writers and the twenty-ninth canon of that 
council testify, which runs thus : ' Because Christians 
ought not to Judaize and to rest in the Sabbath, but to 
work in that day (which many did refuse at that time to 
do). But preferring in honor the Lord's day (there 
being then a great controversy among Christians which 
of these two days ... should have precedency), if they 
should desired to rest they should do this as Chris- 
tians. Wherefore if they shall be found to Judaize, let 
them be accursed from Christ/ . . . The seventh-day 
Sabbath was . . . solemnized by Christ, the apostles, 
and primitive Christians, till the Laodicean Council did 
in a manner quite abolish the observation of it. . . . The 
Council of Laodicea . . . first settled the observation of 
the Lord's day, and prohibited . . . the keeping of the 
Jewish Sabbath under an anathema." — Dissertation on 
the Lord's Day Sabbath, pp. 33, 34, 44. Edition 1633. 

We also quote from an old English writer, 
John Ley : — 

"From the apostle's time until the Council of Laodi- 
cea, which was about the year 364, the holy observation 
of the Jews' Sabbath continued, as may be proved out of 
many authors ; yea, notwithstanding the decree of that 
council against it." — Sunday a Sabbath, p. 163. Edi- 
tion 1640. 

From this time onward the general disre- 
gard of the ancient Sabbath was a foregone 
conclusion. It did continue, as we shall 
show, in some localities where the Catholic 
Church had not the power to abolish it. But 
the influence of that church was so great, its 
jurisdiction so extensive, its hatred to the 
Sabbath of the Lord so bitter, and its efforts 
in behalf of the Sunday Sabbath so active, 
that for centuries the ancient Sabbath made 
but little figure among Christian communi- 



THE SABBATH AFTER CHRIST. 97 

ties. We charge plainly and squarely upon 
the corruptions of that Christianity which 
developed into the Roman Catholic Church, 
the change of the Sabbath, and the abolition 
of the ancient Sabbath of the Lord, contrary 
to the practice of the church of Jesus Christ. 
The influences which hastened this result 
dwelt in Rome itself in a special sense, far 
more than in other sections. The bishops of 
Rome manifested their enmity against the 
Sabbath far more than those of any other 
city. 

About the year A. D. 200, the Church of 
Rome turned the Sabbath into a fast day, 
evidently to make the Sabbath disreputable. 
Says Mr. James, before the University of 
Oxford :— 

"The Western church began to fast on Saturday at 
the beginning of the third century/' 

Dr. Charles Hase, of Germany, says : — 

"The Roman Church regarded Saturday as a fast day 
in direct opposition to those who regarded it as a Sab- 
bath. Sunday remained a joyful festival/' etc. — Ancient 
Church History, part 1, div. 2, a. d. 100-312, sec. 69. 

Says the great German historian, Nean- 

der : — 

"In the Western churches, particularly the Roman, 
where opposition to Judaism was the prevailing ten- 
dency, this very opposition produced the custom of 
celebrating the Saturday in particular as a fast day." — 
Neander, p. 186. 

By Judaism is doubtless meant the observ- 
ance of the Sabbath. Fasting is never popu- 
lar, and of course, seeing the Sunday was 
made as joyful a day as possible, the Sabbath 

Change of Sabbath. 7 



98 THE SABBATH AFTER CHRIST. 

was disliked. The Eastern churches did not 
follow in this practice of fasting on the Sab- 
bath for a long time, and censured the Roman 
Church for doing it. 

The Roman Church made the first edict in 
behalf of Sunday. It required the observance 
of the passover on the Sunday following 
Good Friday, while the great majority of the 
other churches celebrated it on the fourteenth 
day of the first month, no matter what day 
of the week this might be. Victor, bishop 
of Rome, in the year 196, tried to impose this 
upon all the churches ; that is, to compel 
them to observe it on Sunday. Dowling calls 
it the " earliest instance of Romish assump- 
tion." The churches of Asia Minor would 
not comply with his wishes. Bower says that 
upon receipt of their letter saying this, Victor, 
giving way " to an impotent and ungovernable 
passion, published bitter invectives against all 
the churches of Asia," etc. — History of the 
Popes, under Victor. 

Constantine's edict in behalf of the ■" ven- 
erable day of the sun " went forth backed by. 
the whole influence of Rome, where, indeed, 
it had its source. At the Council at Nicaea, 
A. D. 325, through the powerful influence of 
Constantine, the position of the Roman 
Church concerning the celebration of the 
passover on Sunday, was carried through. 
Thus Rome secured a victory in behalf of 
Sunday. One special reason urged by the 
emperor in behalf of Sunday was this: "Let 
us, then, have nothing in common with the 
most hostile rabble of the Jews." This 
hatred of the Jews was one of the strongest 



THE SABBATH AFTER CHRIST. 99 

causes why the Sabbath was suppressed. 
Sylvester, bishop of Rome at this time, and 
Eusebius, the historian, were special favorites 
of the emperor, and doubtless used their 
utmost influence with him to bring about 
these results. 

We see, therefore, the Roman influence in 
all these moves to suppress the Sabbath. 
They culminated in the Council of Laodicea, 
A. D. 364, when the keeping of the Sabbath 
was denounced, and those who observed it 
were placed under a curse. Who can fail to 
see the leading spirit in this movement ? 
Whenever the Roman Church has had au- 
thority, the Sabbath has been degraded. 
It continued much longer in the Eastern 
churches than in the Western, where the 
Roman influence was paramount. After the 
removal of the capital city from Rome to 
Constantinople by the Emperor Constantine, 
there was quite a struggle on the part of the 
bishop of the latter city for the mastery ; but 
to no purpose, though it finally resulted in 
the separation of the Roman and Greek Cath- 
olic churches. But throughout the Western 
churches the adherents of the Sabbath had 
little favor ; though we find here and there 
traces of Sabbath-keepers in retired places 
all through the Dark Ages. Of these we will 
speak hereafter. 

Thus we see that the Roman Catholic 
Church, with the pope at its head, " exalted" 
itself " above God " by setting aside his law. 
Thus he fulfilled the prophet's prediction, 
" He shall think to change the times and 
the law." 



CHAPTER XII. 

STEPS BY WHICH SUNDAY ROSE INTO 
PROMINENCE. 

In this treatise, giving an account of the 
change of the Sabbath from the seventh to 
the first day of the week, it is but reasonable 
that we should present the prominent causes 
which led to this result. We have shown 
that the Bible gives no account of such a 
change ; but it has been made, and the great 
mass of Christians are now observing the first 
day of the week. There must have been the 
united action of powerful causes to accomplish 
this. We present, as the most prominent of 
these, the following : — 

1. Sunday was an ancient heathen festival, 
which, from time immemorial, had been 
looked upon with favor, and regarded as more 
or less sacred by worshipers of the sun ; so 
that when Christianity made progress among 
the idolatrous Gentile nations, it came in 
conflict with this custom. 

2. The difficulty of keeping the seventh-day 
Sabbath, surrounded as Christians were by 
the great masses of the people who did not 
observe it, but who paid more or less respect 
to Sunday. 

3. The voluntary observance of memorable 
days, such as the day of the crucifixion, the 
resurrection, the ascension, etc., as the church 
lost its purity, and began to wander away 
from the Scriptures. 

[IOO] 



SUNDAY IN THE ASCENDENCY. 101 

4. Hatred of the Jews, which was cherished 
among the Gentile nations, especially the 
Roman people, and after the death of the 
apostles, among Christians, on account of the 
persecutions they received, and because the 
Jews put Christ to death. 

5. Especially, as the work of apostasy pro- 
ceeded, the acceptance of tradition in place 
of the Bible. Here the church lost its con- 
nection with God, and wandered into hea- 
thenish practices, setting aside precious truths 
of divine authority, and accepting the inven- 
tions of men. 

6. The hatred of the church of Rome to the 
Sabbath of the Lord, seeking constantly to 
lower it in the estimation of the people, and 
to exalt the first day in its place. When this 
church came fully into power, it accomplished 
the work. 

These influences combined, in the space 
of centuries, gradually to undermine the Sab- 
bath, and to exalt the first day of the week in 
popular estimation, till, in the observance of 
the masses, it wholly superseded the Sabbath. 
We will notice more particularly some of 
these causes. 

The festival of Sunday is very ancient, 
reaching back into hoary antiquity. No per- 
son can tell where or when it did originate. 
It was of idolatrous origin, and was conse- 
crated to the worship of the sun. There was 
a time, in the days of the early patriarchs, 
when the worship of the true God was univer- 
sal. But Satan, the great enemy of God, 
instituted idolatry. The worship of the sun, 



102 SUNDAY IN TEE ASCENDENCY. 

moon, and stars, especially the former, was 
the most ancient and prevalent form of idola- 
try. Under various names, in all the heathen 
nations, the sun was adored. Sunday was 
evidently a rival to God's ancient Sabbath, as 
idolatry was a grand counterfeit system to the 
worship of the true God. In proof of these 
statements we cite various authorities, all of 
them persons who did not observe the seventh 
day, but the first day of the week, as far as 
they observed any day. Webster thus defines 
the word Sunday : — 

" Sunday ; so called because this day was anciently 
dedicated to the sun, or to its worship. The first day of 
the week." 

Worcester, also, in his large dictionary thus 
defines it : — 

"Sunday; so named because anciently dedicated to 
the sun or to its worship. The first day of the week." 

The North British Review, in a labored 
attempt to justify the observance of Sunday 
by the Christian world, styles the day, — 

" The wild solar Holiday [i. e., festival in honor of 
the sun] of all Pagan Times." — Vol. 18, p. 409. 

This, from such an intelligent authority, is 
certainly a strong proof of the general regard 
for the Sunday among the heathen. It is in- 
deed surprising how Sunday should thus gen- 
erally have come to be a holiday each week. 
This is strong evidence of the antiquity of the 
weekly division of time. 

Verstegan says : — 

" The most ancient Germans being pagans, and hav- 
ing appropriated their first day of the week to the pecul- 



SUNDAY IN TEE ASCENDENCY. 103 

iar adoration of the sun, whereof that day doth yet in 
our English tongue retain the name of Sunday/' — Ver- 
stegan's Antiquities, p. 10. London, 1628. 

Again he says : — 

" Unto the day dedicated unto the special adoration 
of the idol of the sun, they gave the name of Sunday, as 
much as to say, the sun's day, or the day of the sun. 
This idol was placed in a temple, and there adored and 
sacrificed unto, for that they believed that the sun in the 
firmament did with or in this idol correspond and co-oper- 
ate." — Idem, p. 68. 

Jennings, speaking of the time of the deliv- 
erance of the Israelites from Egyptian bond- 
age, thus speaks of the Gentile nations as — 

" The idolatrous nations who, in honor to their chief 
god, the sun, began their day at his rising." — Jewish 
Antiquities, book 3, chap. 1. 

Again : — 

"The day which the heathens in general consecrated 
to the worship and honor of their chief god, the sun, 
which, according to our computation, was the first day 
of the week/' — Idem, chap. 3. 

We see, therefore, according to this author, 
that Sunday was more ancient than the com- 
ing of Israel out of Egypt. 

Morer says : — ■ 

"It is not to be denied but we borrow the name of 
this day from the ancient Greeks and Romans, and we 
allow that the old Egyptians worshiped the sun, and as 
a standing memorial of their veneration, dedicated this 
day to him. And we find by the influence of their 
examples, other nations, and among them the Jews them- 
selves, doing him homage." — Dialogues on the Lord's 
Bay, pp. 22, 23. 

These statements of respectable authors 
place Sunday in the very earliest ages of 



104 SUNDAY IN THE ASCENDENCY. 

antiquity, as a " memorial" of the first form of 
idolatry among the Egyptians, from whom 
the Romans and the Greeks largely derived 
their forms of heathen worship. It is well 
"known that their most famous philosophers 
went to Egypt to become acquainted with 
their sacred mysteries. Among the Assyrians 
and Persians, two other very ancient nations, 
it is well known that Sabianism — the worship 
of the sun, moon, and stars — was the most 
ancient form of religion. Thus sun-worship, 
with its attendant "memorial" was struggling 
for recognition away back in the earliest ages, 
and that, too, in direct antagonism with the 
"memorial" of Jehovah's rest, the Sabbath of 
the Lord. 

No one can fully grasp the Sabbath and 
Sunday question without viewing it in these 
extended relations. The change of the Sab- 
bath is the result of one of the deepest plans 
ever conceived by the author of all evil. As 
the Sabbath is the memorial of God's crea- 
tive power, a grand monument of the work 
which shows his divinity as an omnipotent 
being, Satan aims against it his most cunning 
schemes, to set it aside and to put in its place 
a day which commemorates false worship and 
apostasy from God. We have seen that the 
Sunday holiday was regarded throughout the 
whole heathen world, even in the earliest ages 
before the exodus from Egypt. 

Though not exactly in the line of the argu- 
ment we are now considering, we cannot 
refrain from noticing the position of the Sab- 
bath among the Gentile nations in this first 
great struggle with its rival, the Sunday. 



SUNDAY IN THE ASCENDENCY. 105 

This reference will be valuable, inasmuch as 
it proves the existence of the Sabbath among 
other nations, long before it was specially 
committed to the Jewish people for preserva- 
tion till the knowledge of the true God should 
be once more restored to those nations who 
had wandered into* idolatry. 
Calmet gives the following : — 

'■ Manasseh Ben Israel assures us that, according to 
the tradition of the ancients, Abraham and his posterity, 
having preserved the memory of creation, observed the 
Sabbath also, in consequence of natural l^w to that pur- 
pose. It is also believed that the religion of the seventh 
day is preserved among the pagans; and the observance 
of this day is as old as the world itself. Almost all the 
philosophers and poets acknowledge the seventh day 
holy." 

This statement that Abraham observed the 
Sabbath is in perfect harmony with the state- 
ment in the book of Genesis, that Abraham 
"kept my charge, my commandments, my 
statutes, and my laws," and with the fact that 
in that- age they reckoned time by weeks. 
Gen. 26:5; 29 : 27. We know that the Sab- 
bath was in existence before the law was 
given on Sinai, because the children of Israel 
kept it a month before the promulgation of 
that law ; and God set it apart at the creation. 
Gen. 2:1-3; Ex. 16. Abraham, who came 
from the Assyrian country, kept the Sabbath ; 
and this writer intimates that it was known 
among all the ancient nations. 

The Arabs are also a very ancient nation. 
They existed in Abraham's time. William 
Jones, missionary to Palestine, says : — 

" The seventh day is known throughout Arabdom by 
1 Yom-es-Sabt/ or day of the Sabbath. Neither the word 



106 SUNDAY IN THE ASCENDENCY. 

' seven ' nor any other name is given by the Arabs to the 
Sabbath day. It is always the Sabbath; and the reason 
for it, they say, is that this has been its name from the 
beginning." 

This is valuable testimony. The Arabs 
were never united with the Jews. They 
have always inhabited the^ country in which 
they settled in Abraham's time, and have 
nearly always maintained an independent 
existence as a people. 

Gilfillan says : — 

"It would appear that the Chinese, who have now 
no Sabbath, at one time honored the seventh day of the 
week."— The Sabbath, p. 360. 

The Asiatic Journal has this item : — 

"The prime minister of the empire affirms that the 
Sabbath was anciently observed by the Chinese, in con- 
formity to the directions of the king." 

On page 359 he says : — 

"The Phoenicians, according to Porphyry, 'conse- 
crated the seventh day as holy .'" 

Josephus bears this testimony : — 

"There is not any city of the Grecians, nor any of 
the barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our 
custom of resting on the seventh day has not come/' — 
Against Apion, book 2, par. 40. 

Gilfillan says : — 

" The Greeks and Komans, according to Aretius, con- 
secrated Saturday to rest, conceiving it unfit for civil 
actions and warlike affairs, but suited for contem- 
plation."— The Sabbath, p. 363. 

John G. Butler, a Free-will Baptist author, 
says : — 



SUNDAY IN TEE ASCENDENCY. 107 

"We learn also from the testimony of Philo, Hesiod, 
Josephus, Porphyry, and others, that the division of time 
into weeks and the observance of the seventh day were 
common to the nations of antiquity. They would not 
have adopted such a custom from the Jews. Whence, 
then, could it have been derived, but through tradition, 
from its original institution in the Garden of Eden ? " — 
Natural and Revealed Theology, p. 396. 

Archbishop Usher gives the following : — 

" The very Gentiles, both civil and barbarous, both 
ancient and of later days, as it were by universal kind of 
tradition, retained the distinction of the seventh day of 
the week." — Usher's Works, part 1, chap, 4. 

Hesiod (b. C. 870) says : — 

"The seventh day is sacred." 

Homer (b. C. 907) says : — 

''Then cometh the seventh day, that is sacred." 

Tibulus says :— 

"Bad omens detained me on the sacred day of 
Saturn." 

We come now to one of the most interest- 
ing discoveries of modern times. In the in- 
vestigations of the ancient ruins of Nineveh 
and Babylon during the past fifty years, many 
marvelous things have been brought to the 
light of day, — things showing an extensive 
knowledge of the arts and sciences, which 
have been lost for ages, and among them are 
ancient monuments and tablets, on which 
historical facts were sculptured. Learned 
men have, after much investigation, been en- 
abled to read these inscriptions, and many 
facts have been obtained which corroborate 
the record of the Holy Scriptures. Among 



108 SUNDAY IN THE ASCENDENCY. 

others, records have been discovered showing 
conclusively that in those early times the 
seventh-day Sabbath was observed. We 
quote from the Congregationalist (Boston), 
Nov. 15, 1882 :— 

" Mr. George Smith says in his ' Assyrian Discoveries' 
(1875) : ' In the year 1869, I discovered, among other 
things, a curious religious calendar of the Assyrians, in 
which every month is divided into four weeks, and the 
seventh days, or Sabbaths, are marked out as days on 
which no work should be undertaken/ Again, in his 
' History of Assur-bani-pal/ he says, ' The 7th, 14th, 19th, 
21st, and 28th [days of the month] are described by an 
ideogram equivalent to sulu or sulum, meaning "rest." 
The calendar contains lists of work forbidden to be done 
on these days, which evidently correspond to the Sab- 
baths of the Jews/' 

H. Fox Talbot, F. R. S., one of the learned 
Assyriologists of Europe, says of the fifth 
" Creation Tablet " found by Mr. George Smith 
on the opposite side of ancient Nineveh, on 
the bank of the Tigris, and now to be seen in 
the British Museum : — 

" This fifth tablet is very important, because it affirms 
clearly, in my opinion, that the origin of the Sabbath 
was coeval with the creation. ... It has been known 
for some time, that the Babylonians observed the Sab- 
bath with considerable strictness. On that day the king 
was not allowed to take a drive in his chariot ; various 
meats were forbidden to be eaten ; and there were a 
number of other minute restrictions. . . . But it is not 
known that they believed the Sabbath to have been 
ordained at creation. I have found, however, since the 
translation of the fifth tablet was completed, that Mr. 
Sayce has recently published a similar opinion. See the 
Academy of Nov, 27, 1875, p. 554." — Records of the 
Past, vol. 4, pp. 117, 118. 

A. H. Sayce, in his lecture before the Royal 
Institution concerning the Assyrian tablets 



SUNDAY IN THE ASCENDENCY. 109 

discovered in the excavations on the site of 
ancient Babylon, says : — 

"The Sabbath of the seventh day appears to have 
been observed with great strictness ; even the monarch 
was forbidden to eat cooked meat, change his clothes, 
take medicine, or drive his chariot on that day." — 
Northern Christian Advocate. 

Here we have testimony, which could be 
greatly multiplied, showing that away back 
in the earliest ages the Chinese, Phoenicians, 
Assyrians, Babylonians, Arabians, Greeks, 
and Romans, and many other nations, did re- 
gard the Sabbath as a sacred day. The far- 
ther we get back, the more sacredly they 
seemed to regard it. It is not surprising that 
Abraham, who came from Assyria, was a Sab- 
bath-keeper. These tablets were engraved 
long before histories, in the ordinary sense of 
the term, w T ere written ; or at least none so 
ancient are extant, unless it be the books of 
Moses. Yet these facts were preserved all 
these ages on the tablets of stone, and now 
come to light as testimony to the sacredness 
of the Sabbath from the most ancient nations. 

But let the thoughtful reader notice the 
striking fact that when idolatry came to pre- 
vail fully, and sun-worship became general 
among all the nations but the Jews, the Sab- 
bath gradually disappeared, and the Sunday, 
the "memorial" of idolatry, took its place in 
general esteem. It is in the earliest record 
of these nations that we find references to the 
Sabbath. In the later ones there are very 
few. Satan, the author of false worship, sup- 
pressed the Sabbath wherever his influence 
was paramount. 



110 SUNDAY IN THE ASCENDENCY. 

But God chose the children of Abraham 
because this devout man kept his charge, his 
commandments, his statutes, and his laws. 
He surrounded them with special circum- 
stances, customs, and ordinances, to keep them 
from the heathen nations around them, till 
the " seed " — Christ — -should come, through 
whom all the nations of the world should be 
blessed, by the calling of the Gentiles again. 
God gave himself to that people, and with 
himself his great " memorial" the Sabbath, 
which kept in mind his work at creation. 
The other nations once had it ; but through 
their idolatry, God and his memorial were 
nearly forgotten by them. Satan tried his 
best to rob God's chosen people of this keep- 
sake ; but because of God's chastisements and 
the constant warnings of the prophets, he 
could not quite accomplish this work. 

After Christ came, and the apostles were 
sent to the Gentiles, they carried with them, 
as we have shown, the Sabbath of the Lord. 
The early Christians kept it as Christ and the 
apostles had done ; and as Christianity spread 
abroad to all the nations of the earth, the 
two " memorials" once more came in conflict. 
The Sunday "holiday of all pagan times" 
was intrenched among all the nations. The 
people everywhere regarded it as a special 
day of pleasure and recreation. It came every 
week. This fact made it difficult for those 
who kept the seventh day as the Sabbath, 
something in the same manner as it makes it 
difficult now for those who turn from the ob- 
servance of Sunday to the Sabbath. All who 
have tried it, know well how hard it is. 



SUNDAY IN TEE ASCENDENCY. Ill 

Gradually, after a generation or two, the 
sense of sacredness began to weaken, and 
feelings of expediency were cherished. The 
great struggle between the two memorials 
then began, and continued, as we shall see, 
till the Sabbath of the Lord was generally 
abandoned. 

These influences are well presented by a 
clergyman of the Church of England, Mr. 
Chafie, who published in 1652 a work in 
vindication of first-day observance. After 
showing the general observance of Sunday 
by the heathen world in the early ages of 
the church, he thus states the reasons which 
forbid Christians' attempting to keep any 
other day : — 

"1. Because of the contempt, scorn, and derision 
they thereby should be had in, among all the Gentiles 
with whom they lived. . . . How grievous would be 
their taunts and reproaches against the poor Christians 
living with them and under their power for their new- 
set sacred day, had the Christians chosen any other than 
the Sunday. . . . 2. Most Christians then were either 
servants or of the poorer sort of people ; and the Gen- 
tiles, most probably, would not give their servants 
liberty to cease from working on any other set day 
constantly, except on their Sunday. . . 3. Because, 
had they assayed such a change, it would have been but 
labor in vain ; . . . they could never have brought it to 
pass." — The Seventh-day Sabbath, pp. 61, 62. 

These reasons present powerful induce- 
ments which we cannot deny to those who 
regard expediency more than principle. The 
early church had begun already to apostatize 
from God, and to accept traditions in pref- 
erence to the Scriptures. Many of the early 
Fathers had been heathen philosophers. It 
ever comes natural for human nature, when 



112 SUNDAY IN THE ASCENDENCY. 

it changes its religious belief, to take with it 
more or less of the old notions and practices. 

Gradually the church began to be less 
strict in its observance of Bible truths, and to 
conform more and more to the spirit of the 
world around them. No Protestant will dis- 
pute this in reference to their regard to many 
of the gospel requirements. Many thought 
by uniting more or less with their heathen 
neighbors they would be more likely to con- 
vert them. In this way the Sabbath partially 
lost its sacredness, and the first day gained 
in position and influence. 

Morer, after stating the fact that the first 
day of the week, as we have quoted, had long 
been the. " memorial " of sun-worship, as its 
name, " Sunday," implies, places before us 
the reasons why the church was led to adopt 
it:— 

"These abuses did not hinder the Fathers of the 
Christian Church simply to repeal, or altogether lay by, 
the day or its name, but only to sanctify and improve 
both, as they did also the pagan temples polluted before 
with idolatrous services, and other instances wherein 
those good men were always tender to work any other 
change than what was evidently necessary, and in such 
things as were plainly inconsistent with the Christian 
religion ; so that Sunday being the day on which the 
Gentiles solemnly adored that planet, and called it Sun- 
day, . . . the Christians thought fit to keep the same 
day and the same name of it, that they might not appear 
causelessly peevish, and by that means hinder the con- 
version of the Gentiles, and bring a greater prejudice 
than might be otherwise taken against the gospel."— 
Dialogues on the Lord's Bay, pp. 22, 23. 

It is such politic reasoning as this which 
has always led to apostasy and conformity to 
the world. It finally developed fully into 



SUNDAY IN THE ASCENDENCY. 113 

the Roman Catholic Church, a mixture of 
heathenism and Christianity. This conform- 
ity to the heathen custom of regarding Sun- 
day as a festival day, was carried so far that 
many thought the Christians worshiped the 
sun as a god ; so that Tertullian, one of the 
Christian Fathers, defended them from this 
charge. He answered that though they wor- 
shiped toward the east, like the heathen, they 
did it for another reason than sun-worship. 
He acknowledged that these acts — prayer 
toward the east, and making Sunday a day 
of festivity — did give men a chance to think 
the sun was the god of the Christians. (See 
Apology, chap. 67, sec. 16.) 

Tertullian is therefore a witness to the fact 
that Sunday was a heathen festival when it 
was adopted by the Christian church, and 
that they were taunted with being sun-wor- 
shipers. 

When we see the striking changes which 
have occurred in the manner of observing 
Sunday within the past one or two hundred 
years, even when nearly all regard it with 
more or less sacredness, and when we note 
the general laxity of practice as compared 
with the strictness of our ancestors, we cannot 
wonder at the changes which two or three 
centuries produced when strong influences 
were brought to bear against the Sabbath, 
and so many other perversions of Bible doc- 
trines were introduced. Thus we see how 
these two causes — the general regard for Sun- 
day as a weekly heathen holiday, and the 
difficulty of keeping the seventh day w T here 
Sunday observance was almost universal — 

Change of Sabbath. 8 



114 WRY SUNDAY WAS FAVORED. 

would powerfully tend to discourage those 
who kept the Sabbath, and gradually under- 
mine it in the esteem of all. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

OTHER REASONS WHY SUNDAY WAS 
FAVORED. 

THE general observance of memorial days 
in the second and third centuries of the Chris- 
tian era, was also another reason why Sunday 
was exalted. Doubtless the practice was in- 
nocent at first, and originated from the best 
motives, being prompted by reverence for 
Christ. The same principle in the human 
heart which has always led people to commem- 
orate important events in which they have 
felt a deep interest, by celebrating with ap- 
propriate services the special days upon which 
these events occurred, led the disciples, after 
the apostles' death, to regard with more or 
less interest the days of Christ's betrayal, 
crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. To 
this day, Good Friday, Holy Thursday, etc., 
are considered as quite sacred in the state 
churches of Europe, especially in the Roman 
and Greek Catholic churches. "Holy week," 
as the week connected with the last scenes 
in Christ's life is called, has been regarded 
with great reverence for ages in the Catholic 
and other national churches, and is really be- 
coming popular in many Protestant churches. 
But all such services and observances have 



WHY SUNDAY WAS FAVORED. 115 

no authority in Scripture ; they are derived 
from tradition alone. It was in this way that 
Sunday, the day of Christ's resurrection, first 
became prominent among Christians. At 
first it was little, if any, more prominent than 
Friday, the day of his crucifixion. Mosheim 
says : — 

"It is also probable that Friday, the- day of Christ's 
crucifixion, was early distinguished by particular honors 
from the other days of the week." — Eccl. Hist., cent. 1, 
part 2, chap. 4, note $ to sec. 4. 

He says of the second century : — 

"Many also observed the fourth day of the week, on 
which Christ was betrayed ; and the sixth, which was 
the day of his crucifixion." — Idem, cent. 2, part 2, 
chap. 1, sec. 12. 

Dr. Peter Heylyn says of those who chose 
Sunday : — 

"Because our Saviour rose that day from among the 
dead, so chose they Friday for another, by reason of our 
Saviour's passion , and Wednesday, on the which he had 
been betrayed ; the Saturday, or ancient Sabbath, being 
meanwhile retained in the Eastern churches." — History 
of the Sabbath, part 2, chap. 1, sec. 12. 

Of the comparative sacredness of these vol- 
untary festivals, the same writer testifies : — 

"If we consider either the preaching of the word, the 
ministration of the sacraments, or the public prayers, 
the Sunday in the Eastern churches had no great prerog- 
ative above other days, especially above the Wednesday 
and the Friday, save that the meetings were more solemn, 
and the concourse of people greater than at other times, 
as is most likely." — Idem, part 2, chap. 3, sec. 4. 
t 

But the fact that Sunday was a general 

public holiday of the heathen world around 
them, and that the Church of Rome made 



116 WRY SUNDAY WAS FAVORED. 

persistent efforts to give it precedence, and, 
above all, the effect of Constantine's decree 
in its favor, gave the Sunday at last a great 
superiority over these other voluntary festival 
days, as well as over the Sabbath itself. The 
efforts of the Church of Rome, and those in 
sympathy with it, in behalf of Sunday, mak- 
ing it a day of joy and gladness, freedom from 
fasts, etc., at the same time turning the Sab- 
bath into a fast day, as we have seen, did 
much toward giving prestige and dignity to 
the former. 

The first recorded instance of Sunday ob- 
servance which has any claim to be consid- 
ered genuine, is mentioned by Justin Martyr, 
A. D. 140, in an address to the Roman em- 
peror. He states in substance that the 
Christians met together on Sunday, when 
the writings of the apostles and prophets 
were read, a discourse was given, prayers 
offered, the consecrated elements — bread and 
wine and water — distributed to, and partaken 
of by, all that were present, and sent to the 
absent by the hands of the deacons, and a 
collection taken up, etc. We here see some 
innovations introduced, such as sending the 
emblems to the absent, and using water in 
connection with them. He does not intimate 
that this day had any divine authority from 
Christ and the apostles, or any command 
whatever for its observance. It would seem 
to be a purely voluntary practice. Neither 
does he hint that the day w r as regarded as a 
Sabbath, or that it was wrong to work on 
that day. He only states that they held a 
religious meeting on it. Sunday had not, up 



WRY SUNDAY WAS FAVORED. 117 

to this time, acquired any title of sacredness. 
It bore simply its old heathen title. He does 
not call it the Lord's day, nor the Christian 
Sabbath. It is more than fifty years later 
before a recorded instance can be found 
where it was called by the former, and many 
years elapsed before it was called by the 
latter title. 

Perhaps it will be proper at this point to 
introduce the testimony of Neander, the 
greatest of church historians. This German 
author speaks as follows of Sunday observ- 
ance in the early church : — 

"The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was 
always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the 
intentions of the apostles to establish a divine command 
in this respect, — far from them, and from the early 
apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to 
Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second century a 
false application of this kind had begun to take place ; 
for men appear by that time to have considered laboring 
on Sunday as a sin." — Neander 's Church History, trans- 
lated by Rose, p. 186. 

This statement of this eminent authority 
truly gives the origin of Sunday observance ; 
it was purely voluntary, standing solely upon 
human authority. Sir Wm. Domville states 
the same fact : — 

"Not any ecclesiastical writer of the first three centu- 
ries attributed the origin of Sunday observance either to 
Christ or to his apostles." — Examination of the Six Texts, 
Supplement, pp. 6, 7. 

The authors living nearest the days of the 
apostles never heard of the arguments put 
forth at this remote day for the change of 
the Sabbath. For hundreds of years no 



118 WHY SUNDAY WAS FAVORED. 

hints, even, were given that Christ or the 
apostles changed the Sabbath. We have 
seen before that Victor, bishop of Rome, 
A. D. 196, made an edict in behalf of Sunday, 
trying to compel the other churches to cele- 
brate the passover on that day. Also that 
the same church turned the Sabbath into a 
fast-day, to place a stigma upon it. 

We will next notice the efforts of the Ro- 
man Church and its sympathizers to make 
Sunday a very joyful festival, in opposition 
to the Sabbath, which it had thus stigmatized 
as a day of sorrow and fasting. It was con- 
sidered a sin to fast on Sunday ; and on that 
day they must stand, not kneel, during 
prayer, this act of standing in prayer being 
a symbol of the resurrection. Tertullian, the 
oldest of the Latin Fathers, who wrote about 
A. D. 200, says : — 

"We devote Sunday to rejoicing." — Apologeticus, 
par. 16. 

Dr. Heylyn says : — 

"Tertullian tells us that they did devote Sunday 
partly unto mirth and recreation, not to devotion alto- 
gether ; when in a hundred years after Tertullian's time 
there was no law or constitution to restrain men from 
labor on this day in the Christian church/' — History of 
the Sabbath, part 2, chap. 8, sec. 13. 

Tertullian himself says : — 

"We count fasting or kneeling in worship on the 
Lord's day to be unlawful. We rejoice in the same 
privilege also from Easter to Whitsunday." — He Corona, 
sec. 3. 

From Peter of Alexandria, another Father, 
we quote the following :> — 



WRY SUNDAY WAS FAVORED. ]19 

" But the Lord's day we celebrate as a day of joy, 
because op it he rose again, on which day we have 
received it for a custom not even to bow the knee." — 
Canon 15. 

We could give many other similar state- 
ments, but it is not necessary. We will not, 
however, omit one statement from Tertullian. 
In speaking of " offerings for the dead," the 
manner of Sunday observance, and the use 
of the sign of the cross upon the forehead, he 
gives the ground of these observances as 
follows : — 

"If for these and other such rules you insist upon 
having positive Scripture injunction, you will find none. 
Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of 
them, custom as their strengthener, and faith as their 
observer." — Be Corona, sec. 4 

Truly, this is a frank statement, which can- 
not be disputed. In this statement we have 
presented, clearly and boldly, one of the 
reasons why Sunday gradually advanced in 
sacredness in the popular view, the accept- 
ance of tradition instead of the word of God 
being the real ground of first-day observance, 
as well as of a vast number of other doctrines 
and customs which came into the church at 
this time. Tradition vs. Scripture is the 
great point of difference between Catholi- 
cism and Protestantism. The moment we 
admit tradition as proper authority for reli- 
gious duty, we step down from the Protestant 
rock, and can find no good reason why we 
should not receive all the heterogeneous 
practices of the Catholic Church. 

We close this part of the subject, relating 
to the authority for Sunday-keeping previous 



120 LAW FOR RESTING ON SUNDAY. 

to the edict of Constantine, by giving the 
conclusions of one who has spent many years 
in investigating the writings of the early 
Fathers. He gives the substance of their 
testimony concerning the earliest observance 
of Sunday as follows : — 

" We shall find, 1. That no one claimed for first-day- 
observance any divine authority ; 2. That none of them 
had ever heard of the change of the Sabbath, and none 
believed the first-day festival to be a continuation of the 
Sabbatic institution ; 3. That labor on that day is never 
set forth as sinful, and that abstinence from labor is 
never mentioned as a feature of its observance, nor even 
implied, only so far as is necessary in order to spend a 
portion of the day in worship ; 4 That if we put together 
all the hints respecting Sunday observance which are scat- 
tered through the Fathers of the first three centuries (for 
no one of them gives more than two of these, and gener- 
ally a single hint is all that is found in one writer), we 
shall find just four items : (1.) An assembly on that day 
in which the Bible was read and expounded, and the 
supper celebrated, and money collected; (2.) The day 
must be one of rejoicing ; (3.) It must not be a day of 
fasting ; and (4.) The knee must not be bent in prayer 
on that day." — Andrews's History of the Sabbath, pp. 
285, 286. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

A LAW FOR RESTING ON SUNDAY. 

We have now reached an important point 
in the consideration of the advance of the 
Sunday institution. We have seen it creep- 
ing stealthily into prominence, in various 
ways, through one influence or another, until 
it has become quite generally recognized as a 
day for religious meetings. But hitherto it 



LAW FOR RESTING ON SUNDAY. 121 

has never claimed Sabbatic honors. Not a 
single instance can be found of any law given 
in its favor as a day of rest, and no instance of 
its being observed as a Sabbath, of its taking 
that title, or being recognized in that charac- 
ter. 

For three hundred years of church history 
the rulers of the Roman empire had been 
pagans. In the early part of the fourth cen- 
tury there came a change ; Constantine the 
Great, so called, professed the Christian reli- 
gion. Before this, because of persecution, the 
church had maintained some degree of purity, 
though many practices had been adopted for 
which there was no warrant in Scripture. 
But from this time on, most rapid changes 
were seen. To obtain favor with the emperor, 
with their own profit in view, vast multitudes 
of pagans embraced the Christian religion 
nominally, though at heart they remained 
unchanged. All Protestants admit that the 
age of Constantine and the one immediately 
succeeding were periods of great corruption. 
From this time forward the process was most 
rapid, till it finally culminated in the full 
development of the Roman Catholic Church. 
We shall see that during this very time the 
most rapid advance of the Sunday institution 
also occurs. 

In the year A. D. 321, Constantine issued 
the following edict : — 

"Let all the judges and town people, and the occu- 
pation of all trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun; 
but let those who are situated in the country, freely and 
at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture ; be- 
cause it often happens that no other day is so fit for 



122 Law for besting on sztndaT. 

sowing corn and planting vines ; lest, the critical moment 
being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted 
by Heaven." 

In no document, human or divine, can any 
command be found to rest on Sunday, the 
first day of the week, previous to this law by 
Constantine. Let the discerning reader note 
carefully the language of this famous law. It 
does not command us to rest on the Christian 
Sabbath, on the first day of the week, or the 
Lord's day, or on the day in which Christians 
generally meet to have divine worship ; but 
it is the "venerable day of the sun " which is 
thus honored, — " the wild solar holiday of all 
fagan times!' The reader will recall what 
has been stated in former chapters concern- 
ing the conflict between the two " memorials," 
the one of the Creator's rest, the other of the 
earliest form of idolatry — sun-worship. Con- 
stantine, with the arm of civil law, now strikes 
the first heavy blow in behalf of the " venera- 
ble day of the sun," thus strengthening the 
positions taken concerning the antiquity of 
the heathen custom of sun-worship on the first 
day of the week. It was, then, a very " ven- 
erable" 'day in the year 321. Constantine was 
still a heathen when he put forth this decree. 
This edict went into effect on the seventh day 
of March. The day following, viz., March 8, 
321, another heathen decree was issued, the 
purport of which was, — 

"That if any royal edifice should be struck by light- 
ning, the ancient ceremonies of propitiating the deity 
should be practiced, and the haruspices were to be con- 
sulted to learn the meaning of the awful portent. The 
haruspices were soothsayers who foretold future events 



LAW FOR RESTING ON SUNDAY. 123 

by examining the entrails of beasts slaughtered in sacri- 
fice to the gods." — Andrews's History of the Sabbath, pp. 
347, 348, ed. 1887. 

Any one who has read heathen history 
knows this was a practice very common 
among them. 

Constantine was a worshiper of Apollo, or 
the sun. Thus Gibbon says : — 

"The devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly 
directed to the genius of the sun, the Apollo of Greek and 
Roman mythology; and he was pleased to be represented 
with the symbols of the god of light and poetry. . . . 
The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive offer- 
ings of Constantine ; and the credulous multitude were 
taught to believe that the emperor was permitted to be- 
hold with mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar 
deity. . . . The sun was universally celebrated as the 
invincible guide and protector of Constantine." — Decline 
and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 20, par. 3. 

Here we plainly discern the reason why 
the emperor puts forth this decree in favor of 
the " venerable day of the sun." He was an 
ardent worshiper of the sun. Mosheim places 
the nominal conversion of Constantine two 
years later than the edict. We say " nomi- 
nal" conversion, for there is no good reason 
to believe that he was ever a genuine Chris- 
tian. He was a tyrant, a murderer of many 
innocent persons, and gave evidence of being 
anything but a follower of the Prince of peace. 

The fiist law for keeping Sunday as a day 
of rest, then, was a heathen law in favor of 
sun-worship. This is admitted by many of 
the best Protestant historians and authors. 
Dr. Milman, the learned editor of Gibbon, 
says : — 

" The rescript commanding the celebration of the 
Christian Sabbath bears no allusion to its peculiar sane- 



124 LAW FOR BESTING ON SUNDAY. 

tity as a Christian institution. It is the day of the sun, 
which is to be observed by the general veneration. The 
courts were to be closed, and the noise and tumult of 
public business and legal litigation were no longer to 
violate the repose of the sacred day. But the believer in 
the new paganism, of which the solar worship was the 
characteristic, might acquiesce without scruple in the 
sanctity of the first day of the week." — History of Chris- 
tianity, book 3, chap. 1, p. 396, ed. 1881. 

In a subsequent chapter he adds : — 

f< In fact, as we have before observed, the day of the 
sun would be willingly hallowed by almost all the pagan 
world, especially that part which had admitted any ten- 
dency toward the Oriental theology/' — Idem, book 3, 
chap. 4, p. 397. 

Thus it is fully admitted that the design of 
this decree was wholly pagan. It was a step 
in the great contest which had been going on 
for ages to crowd out the Sabbath of the Lord, 
and exalt the " memorial" of idolatry in its 
place. How did this heathen edict affect the 
practice of the Christian church ? We have 
already seen that the two days, the seventh 
and the first, were balancing in popular favor, 
and that the Roman Church had been doing 
what it could to suppress the Sabbath and 
exalt Sunday. We shall now see that the so- 
called Church of Jesus Christ took advantage 
of this heathen decree in behalf of the " vener- 
able day of the sun," to complete the work 
already begun. This edict was a heavy blow 
to the Sabbath, and as great an aid to the 
Sunday. We quote from the " Encyclopedia 
Britannica " as follows : — 

"It was Constantine the Great who first made a law 
for the proper observance of Sunday, and who, according 
to Eusebius, appointed it should be regularly celebrated 



LAW FOR RESTING ON SUNDAY. 125 

throughout the Roman empire. Before him, and even in 
his tioae, they observed the Jewish Sabbath, as well as 
Sunday. . . . By Constantine's law, promulgated in 321, 
it was decreed that for the future the Sunday should be 
kept as a day of rest in all cities and towns ; but he allowed 
the country people to follow their work." — Art, Sunday, 
seventh edition, 1842. 

Mosheim, who was quite a strong advocate 
for Sunday, says of this law : — 

" The first day of the week, which was the ordinary 
and stated time for the public assemblies of the Chris- 
tians, was, in consequence of a peculiar law enacted by 
Constantine, observed with greater solemnity than it had 
formerly been." — Ecclesiastical History, cent. 4, part 2, 
chap. 4, sec. 5. 

This is quite an admission for this historian 
to make. This heathen law, permitting those 
who followed the occupation of agriculture to 
plow, sow, plant trees, etc., but which forbade 
the town people to work, caused the Chris- 
tians to observe Sunday more strictly than 
they had formerly. As the law only required 
a part of the people to rest on Sunday, while 
the others could freely work, we must con- 
clude that before the issue of this edict, none 
of the people had refrained from labor on 
Sunday. This we have seen was the case, 
since there was no law in existence before 
this requiring it. Sir Wm. Domville says : — 

" Centuries of the Christian era passed away before 
the Sunday was observed by the Christian church as a 
Sabbath. History does not furnish us with a single proof 
or indication that it was at any time so observed previous 
to the Sabbatical edict of Constantine in a. d. 321." — 
Examination of the Six Texts, p. 291. 

This edict of Constantine's greatly accel- 
erated the current already setting strongly 



126 LAW FOR RESTING ON SUNDAY. 

against the ancient Sabbath. It furnished 
some authority, if it was only heathen, in be- 
half of the Sunday. Every advance it made 
correspondingly depressed the Sabbath, inas- 
much as keeping two days in each week as a 
rest day would be absurd. An able writer 
thus expresses the result throughout the 
Roman empire : — 

"Very shortly after the period when Constantine 
issued his edict enjoining the general observance of San- 
day throughout the Roman empire, the party that had 
contended for the observance of the seventh day dwindled 
into insignificance. The observance of Sunday as a 
public festival, during which all business, with the ex- 
ception of rural employments, was intermitted, came to 
be more and more generally established ever after this 
time, throughout both the Greek and the Latin churches. 
There is no evidence, however, that either at this or at a 
period much later the observance was viewed as deriving 
any obligation from the fourth commandment ; it seems 
to have been regarded as an institution corresponding 
in nature with Christmas, Good Friday, and other fes- 
tivals of the church ; and as resting with them on the 
ground of ecclesiastical authority and tradition/' — Cox's 
Sabbath Laics, pp. 280, 281. 

We see, therefore, that that which caused 
the Sabbath to be greatly neglected was the 
heathen decree of the emperor. Heathenism 
and corrupted Christianity united their forces 
in putting down the Sabbath and exalting 
Sunday in its place. It might be said that 
this decree was the expiring act of heathen- 
ism. In one sense it was so ; but the kind of 
Christianity which took its place really resem- 
bled heathenism more than it did the pure 
and humble religion of Christ and his apos- 
tles. This remark at first may seem harsh 
and incredible; but truly. the reflecting, ob- 



LAW FOB RESTING ON SUNDAY. 127 

serving mind must admit its truthfulness. 
What resemblance is there between the plain, 
simple forms of worship observable in the 
ministry of Christ and the apostles, and the 
gorgeous, pompous ceremonials of the Cath- 
olic Church ? What resemblance is there in 
the appearance, manners, and dress of the 
two, — in our Saviour going about on foot, a 
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, 
healing the sick and benefiting all, clad in 
his seamless coat, the garb of the poor, and 
the lordly priest, clad in his official robes 
of purple or scarlet, bowing before images 
with his train of attendants, and exacting the 
highest homage ? What resemblance is there 
in the doctrines of the two ? Christ taught 
the need of repentance, faith, baptism, and the 
living of a humble, pure, holy life of obedience 
to the truths of God's word and the prin- 
ciples of God's law. But look at the Catholic 
ceremonials, the confessions to the priest, 
the prayers for souls in purgatory, the holy 
water, vows of celibacy, worshiping of im- 
ages, elevating and adoring the bread, be- 
lieving it to be the actual flesh of our Lord 
and Saviour ! 

And what resemblance is there in the spirit 
of the two ? Our Saviour was ever seeking 
to alleviate suffering, to benefit all within his 
reach. He wept over the people of Jerusalem 
because they would not let him save them ; 
he prayed, even for his enemies, while hang- 
ing on the cross in the greatest agony. On 
the other hand, look at the bloody Crusades, 
at the massacre on St. Bartholomew's day, 
when the blood of the poor Huguenots ran 



128 LAW FOB BESTING 02f SUNDAY. 

down the streets of Paris, when the papists 
surprised them through deception ; and look 
at the poor Waldenses, butchered by thou- 
sands — men, women, and children — because 
they would not take the pope's authority in- 
stead of the Scriptures as their rule of action. 
See the Inquisition with its horrors ; men and 
women tortured on the rack, or starved to 
death in deep dungeons. These things were 
done when the Roman Church had the power. 
What, we say, are the resemblances between 
their practices and the pure religion of Jesus ? 
But there is a striking resemblance on the 
other hand between heathenism and the cer- 
emonies, manners, forms of worship, bowing 
to images, resplendent robes, and persecuting 
spirit of Catholicism ; indeed, Catholics them- 
selves admit that many of their customs were 
derived from the heathen. On this interest- 
ing point we will venture to quote from two 
eminent Catholic writers. Cardinal Baro- 
nius, perhaps the most reliable writer in this 
church, says : — 

"That many things have been laudibly translated 
from Gentile superstition into the Christian religion, 
hath been demonstrated by many examples and the 
authority of the Fathers. And what wonder if the most 
holy bishops have granted that the most ancient customs 
of the Gentiles should be introduced into the worship 
of the true God, from which it seemed impossible to 
take off many, though converted to Christianity ? " 

Bervaldus, another Catholic writer, speaks 
as follows : — 

"When I call to mind the institutions of the holy 
mysteries of the heathen, I am forced to believe that 
most things appertaining to the. celebration of our sol- 



LAW FOR RESTING ON SUNDAY. 129 

enmities and ceremonies are taken thence ; as, for exam- 
ple, from the Gentile religion the shaven heads of priests, 
turning round of the altar, sacrificial pomps, and many 
such like ceremonies which our priests solemnly use in 
our mysteries. How many things in our religion are like 
the Roman religion ! How many rites common ! " 

Truly our remark that Catholicism resem- 
bles the heathen worship more than it does 
the religion of Christ, cannot be denied. 
Catholicism is a system of mixed Christianity 
and heathenism, with the latter predom- 
inating. 

The edict by Constantine, and the full 
adoption of the heathen Sunday by the 
church, marks the point where this heathen 
union was consummated. Constantine at 
that point represented the heathen, being an 
ardent sun-worshiper. Pope Sylvester, at 
that time bishop of Rome, represented the 
Catholic Church. In its efforts to elevate 
Sunday, this church joyfully accepted his 
heathen decree and heathen day, and thus 
fully blended the heathen system with their 
corrupted form of Christianity. From that 
point the barriers were broken down, and 
heathens and heathenism largely took posses- 
sion of the church. At this point, so history- 
informs us, many of the humble, God-fearing 
Christians withdrew into retired places, where 
they could still worship God according to the 
Scriptures. Pope Sylvester, by his apostol- 
ical authority, changed the name of the day, 
giving it the imposing title of "Lord's Day." 
(See "Ecclesiastical History of Lucius," cent. 
4, cap. 10, pp. 739, 740.) It had been called 
by that title by a few writers before ; but 

Change of Sabbath. 9 



130 LAW FOR RESTING ON SUNDAY. 

Sylvester, as head of the church, now officially 
decided that its title should be " Lord's Day." 
Thus Constantine elevated the Sunday as a 
heathen festival to be observed throughout 
the empire, while Sylvester changed it into 
a Christian institution, dignifying it by the 
title of " Lord's Day." 

Concerning the grounds upon which Sun- 
day stands, we will here give a quotation from 
Dr. Heylyn ; — 

" Thus do we see upon what grounds the Lord's day 
stands : on custom first and voluntary consecration of 
it to religious meetings ; that custom countenanced by 
the authority of the church of God, which tacitly ap- 
proved the same ; and finally confirmed and ratified by 
Christian princes throughout their empires. And as the 
day for rest from labors and restraint from business upon 
that day, [it] received its greatest strength from the 
supreme magistrate as long as he retained that power 
which to him belongs ; as after from the canons and 
decrees of councils, the decretals of popes and orders of 
particular prelates, when the sole managing of eccle- 
siastical affairs was committed to them/' — History of the 
Sabbath, part 2, chap. 3, sec. 12. 

Here we have truly set before us the au- 
thority on which the Sunday Sabbath rests. 
How different from that for the Sabbath of 
the Lord ! The former is wholly human ; the 
latter, wholly divine. The former originated 
in heathenism and idolatry, and was finally 
adopted as a rest day by a corrupted church 
on the authority of a Roman tyrant ; the lat- 
ter began by the act of God himself, at the 
creation of the world, in resting, blessing, and 
setting apart the day for man to keep, and in 
commanding his people to observe it for all 
time. 



SUNDAY TO THE REFORMATIOX. 131 

Eusebius, who was a bishop, and a great 
flatterer and favorite of the Emperor Con- 
stantine, seems to admit that the change 
wrought in the Sabbath at this time was 
by human authority. He says : — 

"All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the 
Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's day." — 
Cox's Sabbath Literature, vol. 1, p. 361. 

We see at last a change of the Sabbath 
quite fully wrought ; at least to this extent, 
that the Sabbath was degraded by a Catho- 
lic council, and denounced under a curse as 
heretical, and that the Sunday was generally 
considered a day for public worship, and for 
at least partial rest. We will next notice 
other steps by which the latter was rendered 
still more sacred in the eyes of the people. 



CHAPTER XV. 

SUNDAY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 

HAVING noticed quite carefully the steps 
by which Sunday reached an influential 
position in the time of Constantine, it will not 
be necessary to cite many more authorities. 
We will only give a few evidences showing 
how the Romish Church s.till carefully fostered 
this favorite child, and left nothing undone 
that it could do to render it more sacred. It 
will be remembered that the important decree 
by Constantine, which was the first command 
in behalf of Sunday requiring any one to rest 
on the first day of the week, gave permission 



132 SUNDAY TO THE REFORMATION. 

to those engaged in agriculture to work on 
that day. It was not long until this permis- 
sion was set aside, and all were commanded 
to rest on the venerable Sunday. 

Pope Leo took certain steps in the fifth 
century to make up the deficiencies in the 
Sunday laws, and add to the honor of this 
favorite institution. He required that all 
ordinations should be conferred on this day 
and no other. Heylyn says : — 

"A law [was] made by Leo, then pope of Rome, and 
generally since taken up in the Western church, that 
they should be conferred upon no day else." — History of 
the Sabbath, part 2, chap. 4, sec. 8. 

According to Dr. Justin Edwards, this same 
pope made this decree in behalf of Sunday : — 



" We ordain, according to the true meaning of the 
Holy Ghost, and of the apostles as thereby directed, that 
on the sacred day wherein our own integrity was re- 
stored, all do rest and cease from labor." — Sabbath 
Manual, p. 123. 

Emperor Leo, A. D. 469, put forth the fol- 
lowing decree in behalf of Sunday : — 

"It is our will and pleasure, that the holy days ded- 
icated to the most high God, should not be spent in sen- 
sual recreations, or otherwise profaned by suits of law, 
especially the Lord's day, which we decree to be a ven- 
erable day, and therefore free it of all citations, execu- 
tions, pleadings, and the like avocations. ... If any 
will presume to offend in the premises, if he be a military 
man, let him lose his commission ; or if other, let his 
estate or goods be confiscated. . . . We command, there- 
fore, all, as well husbandmen as others, to forbear work 
on this dav of our restoration/' — Dialogues on the Lord's 
Day, pp. 259, 260. 

Here we see, first, the pope ordaining that 
all cease from labor on Sunday. Then the 



SUNDAY TO THE REFORMATION. 133 

emperor steps in and supports this action. 
Full human authority is now given to rest 
on Sunday. All classes must obey, on penalty 
of fines or confiscation of all their property. 
We do not wonder, then, that in that age, 
when few had Bibles, and tradition was gen- 
erally followed, Sunday came to be generally 
observed. We learn that just previous to this 
time, however, Sunday was not very strictly 
observed as a rest day. 
Kitto says : — 

" Chrysostom (a. d. 860) concludes one of his hom- 
ilies by dismissing his audience to their respective or- 
dinary occupations." — Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, 
art. Lord's Day. 

Heylyn bears witness concerning St. Chry- 
sostom, that he — 

"Confessed it to be lawful for a man to look unto 
his worldly business on the Lord's day, after the con- 
gregation was dismissed."— History of the Sabbath, part 
2, chap. 3, sec. 9. 

St. Jerome, in his commendation of the 
very pious lady Paula, speaks thus of Sunday 
labor : — 

"Paula, with the women, as soon as they returned 
home on the Lord's day, they sat down severally to their 
work, and made clothes for themselves and others." — 
Dialogues on the Lord's Day, p. 234. 

The bishop of Ely thus testifies : — 

"In St. Jerome's days, and in the very place where 
he was residing, the devoutest Christians did ordinarily 
work upon the Lord's day, when the service of the 
church was ended." — Treatise of the Sabbath Day, p. 219. 

There is a vast difference between divine 
and human authority. The latter cannot 



134 SUNDAY TO THE REFORMATION. 

control the conscience as the former can. 
These persons knew very well that the Sun- 
day rested upon only human authority. It 
was a gradual process, taking quite a space 
of time before Sunday gained the position it 
now holds. Dr. Heylyn bears the following 
testimony concerning the status of Sunday 
during the fifth and sixth centuries : — 

" The faithful being united better than before, became 
more uniform in matters of devotion ; and in that uni- 
formity did agree together to give the Lord's day all the 
honors of an holy festival. Yet was not this done all at 
once, but by degrees, the fifth and sixth centuries being 
wellnigh spent before it came into that hight which 
hath since continued. The emperors and the prelates in 
these times had the same affections ; both [being] earnest 
to advance this day above all other ; and to the edicts 
of the one, and ecclesiastical constitutions of the other, 
it stands indebted for many of those privileges and 
exemptions which it still enjoyeth." — History of the 
Sabbath, part 2, chap. 4, sec. 1 

Here we see the same solicitude in behalf 
of Sunday on the part of the " prelates " of 
the church, which has appeared all along since 
apostasy and corruption first entered after the 
days of the apostles. " They zvere earnest to 
advance the day above all other!' This change 
of the Sabbath was really the work of the 
Roman Catholic Church. It was this that 
influenced the emperors and civil rulers. 
There was one honor, however, still belonging 
to the seventh day, which Sunday had not 
acquired. Thus the bishop of Ely says : — 

"When the ancient Fathers distinguish and give 
proper names to the particular days of the week, they 
always style the Saturday, ' Sabbatum, the Sabbath/ 
and the Sunday, or first day of the week, ' Dominicum, 
the Lord's day.' " — Treatise of the Sabbath Day, p. 202. 



SUNDAY TO THE REFORMATION. 135 

This statement, however, must not be taken 
as referring to an earlier writer than Tertul- 
lian. He first called it the Lord's day about 
A. D. 200. It is doubtless true of the later 
Fathers. 

Brerewood says : — 

"The name of the Sabbath remained appropriated to 
the old Sabbath, and was never attributed to the Lord's 
day, not of many hundred years after our Saviour's 
time." — Learned Treatise of the Sabbath, p. 73. Edition 
1631. 

Dr. Heylyn says of the term " Sabbath " in 
the ancient church : — 

"The Saturday is called among them by no other 
name than that which formerly it had, the Sabbath. So 
that whenever for a thousand years and upwards, we 
meet with Sabbatum in any writer of what name so- 
ever, it must be understood of no day but Saturday." — 
History of the Sabbath, part 2, chap. 2, sec. 12. 

Again he says : — 

"The first who ever used it to denote the Lord's day 
(the first that I have met with in all this search) is one 
Petrus Alfonsus — he lived about the time that Rupertus 
did [which was the beginning of the twelfth century] — 
who calls the Lord's day by the name of Christian Sab- 
bath." — Idem, part 2, chap. 5, sec. 13. 

This is a striking fact which should never 
be forgotten in the investigation of this ques- 
tion. It was not until the middle of the Dark 
Ages that Sunday was ever called the Sab- 
bath. The ancient Sabbath retained its own 
distinctive title for eleven hundred years after 
Christ, and no other day during all this period 
was known by this title but the seventh day. 
Not an instance can be found in history to 
the contrary. 



136 SURD AT TO THE REFORMATION. 

Sunday steadily advanced in popular favor 
down to the beginning of the sixth century, 
becoming the usual day on which public meet- 
ings were held, and at least a partial rest day, 
but had never yet been called the Sabbath. 

The next six or seven centuries from this 
time was an age of great barbarism and spirit- 
ual darkness. Men's minds were controlled by 
the grossest superstitions. The power of the 
popes was almost supreme. Not one person in 
a hundred could read or write, and books were 
very few and expensive. The Bible was ban- 
ished from the hands of the common people, 
and nearly every copy was in either Greek or 
Latin, languages which at this time were not 
spoken by the masses. Very few persons, 
comparatively, ever saw a Bible. During a 
part of this time, it was considered a great 
crime for a common person to be found read- 
ing the Bible, and the offense was punish- 
able by the Inquisition. 

It is not necessary that we should carefully 
note the steps by which Sunday attained to a 
higher power in such an age. We have al- 
ready seen how, step by step, it stealthily ad- 
vanced until that time, first asking only toler- 
ation, next claiming equality with the ancient 
Sabbath, and then taking a position above it 
as a joyous day, while the latter was made a 
fast day. Afterward it was called the Lord's 
day of apostolic times. Finally it was ad- 
vanced by heathen emperor and Roman pope 
to the dignity of a day of partial rest. It cast 
the creation Sabbath aside by Catholic coun- 
sel, declaring that all who observed it were 
heretics, and placed them under a curse ; and 



SUNDAY TO THE REFORMATION. 137 

lastly, it was sustained by popes, emperors, 
and councils, claiming the whole field as its 
own. 

From this time forward, at every convenient 
occasion, a Catholic council would put forth a 
canon in behalf of the " venerable day of the 
sun," striving to make the people observe it 
more sacredly. It would weary the mind of 
the reader were we to give a list of all these, 
and what they said concerning this pet institu- 
tion of the church of Rome. We will, how- 
ever, mention a few of the Roman Catholic 
councils. The first Council of Orleans, A. D. 
507, " obliged themselves and successors to be 
always at the church on the Lord's day." The 
third Council of Orleans, A. D. 538, required 
agricultural labor to be laid aside on the 
Lord's day, " in order that the people may not 
be prevented from attending church." In 538 
another council was held in Mascon, a town 
in Burgundy, because " Christian people very 
much neglect and slight the Lord's day," giv- 
ing themselves to common work, etc. The 
bishops warned them against such practices, 
and commanded them to keep the Lord's day. 
About a year later another council was held 
in Narbonne, which forbade all persons from 
doing any work on the Lord's day, on penalty 
of a " fine if a freeman," or of " being lashed if 
a servant." In 654 one was held at Chalons, 
another in England in 692, also one in 747, 
one in Bavaria in 772, again one in England in 
784. Five councils were called by Char- 
lemagne in the year 813, and one was held in 
Rome in 826. In all of these, strong efforts 
were made to build up the Sunday sacred- 



138 SUNDAY TO THE REFORMATION. 

ness. Many others were also held for the same 
purpose. 

But as these laws failed to accomplish all that 
the Catholics desired, and Sunday was still but 
poorly kept, they had recourse to miracles,— 
a very popular argument with the Romish 
Church. Gregory of Tours, A. D. 570, fur- 
nishes several. A husbandman went out to 
plow on the Lord's day, and trying to clean 
his plow with an iron, "the iron stuck fast to 
his hand for two years, ... to his exceeding 
great pain and shame." Some were killed by 
lightning for working on that day. Others 
were seized with convulsions. Apparitions 
appeared to kings, charging them to enforce 
Sunday sacredness. A miller was at one time 
grinding corn on Sunday, and instead of the 
usual production of meal, a torrent of blood 
came forth. At another time a woman was 
trying to bake her bread upon this venerable 
day, but upon putting it in the oven, it 
remained only dough. It was said of the 
souls in purgatory that on every — 

"Lord's day they were manumitted from their pains, and 
fluttered up and down the lake Avernus in the shape of 
birds." — Heylyn's History of the Sabbath, part 2, chap. 5, 
sec. 2. 

It seems a little strange to us to read of such 
things ; but these were regarded as sober facts 
by the historians of those times, and as strong 
arguments for Sunday sacredness. We must 
not fail to mention the roll " which came down 
from heaven," in which the first authority from 
Christ is found in behalf of Sunday. The one 
great lack hitherto had been divine authority 



SUNDAY TO THE REFORMATION. 139 

for it. None was claimed by the early Fa- 
thers. " Tradition " and "custom," as we 
have seen, were all the authority for it which 
could be found until emperors and popes 
added theirs. But even in those dark ages 
the want of something more was needed. 
Council after council was held to enforce it, 
yet the people were not so impressed by them 
that they would wholly refrain from labor on 
the venerable Sunday. Something more must 
be obtained. 

In the year 1200, Eustace, the abbot of 
Flaye, in Normandy, came to England, and 
labored very ardently in behalf of Sunday. 
But meeting with opposition in his efforts, he 
returned to Normandy. Although repulsed, 
he did not abandon the contest. After re- 
maining there about a year, he returned with 
this remarkable roll. It was entitled — 

" THE HOLY COMMANDMENT AS TO THE LORD'S DAY, 

' ' Which came from heaven to Jerusalem, and was found 
upon the altar of Saint Simeon, in Golirotha, where 
Christ was crucified for the sins of the world. The Lord 
sent down this epistle, which was found upon the altar 
of Saint Simeon, and after looking upon which three 
days and three nights, some men fell upon the earth, 
imploring mercy of God. And after the third hour, the 
patriarch arose, and Acharias, the archbishop, and they 
opened the scroll, and received the holy epistle from 
God. And when they had taken the same, they found 
this writing therein : — 

" f I am the Lord who commanded you to observe the 
holy day of the Lord, and ye have not kept it, and have 
not repented of your sins, as I have said in my gospel, 
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall 
not pass away." Whereas I cause to be preached unto 
you repentance and amendment of life, you did not be- 
lieve me, I have sent against you the pagans, who have 
shed your blood on the earth ; and yet jou have not be- 



140 SUNDAY TO THE REFORMATION. 

lieved ; and because you did not keep the Lord's day 
holy, for a few days you suffered hunger, but soon I 
gave you fullness, and after that you did still worse 
again. Once more, it is my will that no one from the 
ninth hour on Saturday until sunrise on Monday, shall 
do any work except that which is good. 

" ' And if any person shall do so, he shall with penance 
make amends for the same. And if you do not pay obe- 
dience to this command, verily I say unto you, and I 
swear unto you, by my seat, and by my throne, and by 
the cherubim who watch my holy seat, that I will give 
you my commands by no other epistle, but I will open 
the heavens, and for rain I will rain upon you stones, 
and wood, and hot water in the night, that no one may 
take precautions against the same, and so that I may de- 
stroy all wicked men. 

'"This do I say unto you; for the Lord's holy day, 
you shall die the death ; and for the other festivals of 
my saints which you have not kept, I will send unto you 
beasts that have the heads of lions, the hair of women, 
the tails of camels, and they shall be so ravenous that 
they shall devour your flesh, and you shall long to flee 
away to the tombs of the dead, and to hide yourselves 
for fear of the beasts ; and I will take away the light of 
the sun from before your eyes, and will send darkness 
upon you, that not seeing, you may slay one another, 
and that I may remove from you my face, and may not 
show mercy upon you. For I will burn the bodies and 
the hearts of you, and of all those who do not keep as 
holy the day of the Lord/" (See Andrews's "History 
of the Sabbath," second edition, pp. 386-389 ; Matthew 
Paris's "Historia Major," pp. 200, 201, edition 1640; 
Heylyn's "History of the Sabbath," part 2, chap. 7, sec. 
5; Morer's "Lord's Day," pp. 288-290; Gilfillan's "The 
Sabbath," p. 399, and many others.) 

We have given over one half of this famous 
document, which in view of our brief space, will 
perhaps suffice. That such a document was 
actually brought to England at the time men- 
tioned, and used with strong effect to enforce 
the observance of Sunday, does not admit of 
any doubt. It is substantiated by all the reli- 



SUNDAY TO THE REFORMATION. \^ v 

able historians of that age. To read such a 
document in this skeptical age, may appear 
to us a little ludicrous. But at the time it 
was written, the hight of the Dark Ages, it 
was far different. That was the age of relics, 
— an age when a nail or a piece of wood of 
the true cross was of inestimable value ; 
when the bones, toe nails, and other memen- 
toes of the saints were considered of the 
highest worth. The credulity of the people 
knew no bounds, and the Romish priests took 
every advantage of it. It was by such means 
as this that support was supplied and holiness 
ascribed to the "venerable day of the sun." 
There is no question but that this remarkable 
document came from the pope himself. This 
is stated on the authority of Matthew Paris, 
whom Dr. Murdock says "is accounted the 
best historian of the Middle Ages, — learned, 
independent, honest, and judicious." Mos- 
heim also says that the first place was due 
to him as "a writer of the highest merit. " 
This writer says :— 

"But when the patriarch and clergy of all the Holy 
Land had diligently examined the contents of this epistle, 
it was decreed in a general deliberation that the epistle 
should be sent to the judgment of the Roman pontiff, 
seeing that whatever he decreed to be done, would 
please all. And when at length the epistle had come 
to the knowledge of the lord pope, immediately he 
ordained heralds, who, being sent through different parts 
of the world, preached everywhere the doctrine of this 
epistle, . . . among whom the abbott of Flay, Eus- 
tachius by name, a devout and learned man, having 
entered the kingdom of England, did there shine with 
many miracles." — Matthew Paris' 's Historia Major, p. 201. 

Innocent III. was pope at that time, and 
no pontiff that ever sat in the papal chair 



142 ATTITUDE OF THE REFORMERS. 

exceeded him in efforts to elevate and 
strengthen the popish power. It was by 
such steps as these that the Romish Church 
advanced the interests of Sunday. Custom, 
tradition, the edicts of emperors, popes, and 
councils, counterfeit miracles, and rolls manu- 
factured by priestly craft, and palmed off, as of 
heavenly origin, upon the ignorant, bigoted, 
and credulous multitude by the sanction of 
the pope and higher prelates, — these are the 
foundations upon which the Sunday Sabbath 
rests. 

It is stated by historians that the Lord's 
day was better observed because of this sec- 
ond roll, and the work of this zealous abbot 
in England. It had, doubtless, a strong in- 
fluence in many places in that superstitious 
age. Having thus traced the Sunday down 
to the middle of the Dark Ages, we will next 
notice it in the time of the Reformation. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

ATTITUDE OF THE REFORMERS TOWARD 
SUNDAY. 

THE design of this treatise is principally 
to give a brief, connected view of the change 
of the Sabbath, and not to say all that can be 
said on the subject, or even present many 
things which would be of interest to an in- 
quiring mind concerning the Sabbath ques- 
tion. And though the position the reformers 
took in relation to the first day of the week is 
not directly connected with the main object 



ATTITUDE OF THE REFORMERS. 143 

of these articles, we cannot forego a brief 
chapter on this subject. Our investigation 
of the rise of Sunday to prominence as a 
sacred day in the church, has thus far been 
wholly connected with the apostasy, which 
finally fully developed into the papacy. The 
rise of Sunday kept even pace with the work 
of corruption in the church, so that the high- 
est point of Romish apostasy was contem- 
porary with the highest degree of Sunday 
sacredness. The inquiring reader will be 
anxious to know what ground the great re- 
formers took relative to this institution. We 
will answer but briefly, as our space is lim- 
ited. 

The great Reformation of the sixteenth 
century arose in the bosom of the Catholic 
Church itself. Many of the reformers were 
priests of that church before the Reformation 
commenced. All of them had been trained 
up in its communion, and were accustomed 
to observe its festivals, and had, at first, full 
respect for its authority. They were, in 
short, good Catholics when they began the 
work of reform. From their earliest infancy 
they had reverenced the institutions of the 
church, and at first never dreamed of leaving 
the church or of rebelling against the pope. 
They doubtless would have remained in the 
bosom of the church had they not been so 
pressed by their enemies, that, driven to the 
wall, they had to take their stand. 

Under such circumstances it could not be 
expected that these men in that age of rev- 
erence for the hoary past would be able to 
see all the errors into which the church had 



144 ATTITUDE OF THE REFORMERS. 

drifted, or come back at once to the complete 
purity of apostolic religion. These men are 
deserving of high honor for the great advance 
out of darkness which they did make, and 
God greatly blessed their labors. But refor- 
mation since their time has still continued, 
and doubtless will till the close of time. No 
men of any one generation are entitled to all 
the credit for the blessed light of our age. It 
has been gradually dawning. 

Mosheim well says : — 

"The vindicators of religious liberty do not discover 
all truth in an instant, but like persons emerging from 
long darkness, their vision improves gradually." 

Dean Stanley says : — 

"Each age of the church has, as it were, turned over 
a new leaf in the Bible, and found a response to its own 
wants." — History of the Eastern Church, p. 79, ed. 1872. 

The Protestants of the present day would 
not accept all that the early reformers be- 
lieved. It is well known that Martin Luther 
and many others held fast to the doctrine 
of consubstantiation, that is, that the actual 
flesh and blood of Christ were in the conse- 
crated bread and wine of the Lord's supper, 
after the priest had blessed it. Many things 
were held and tolerated which we would not 
flow think consistent. It causes no surprise, 
therefore, that most of the reformers did not 
see all the truth of God's word concerning the 
ancient Sabbath. After a thousand years of 
such gross darkness, while tradition was gen- 
erally reckoned to be of supreme authority, 
this would have been too much to expect. 



ATTITUDE OF THE REFORMERS. 145 

But what was the position taken by them 
concerning Sunday sacredness ? Did they 
regard it as the day which Christ had set 
apart as the Christian Sabbath ? Did they 
consider there was any scriptural authority 
for it ? that it was sin to do ordinary work 
upon it ? or that there was any command of 
God that it should be kept holy ? Or did they 
consider it merely a festival day, like Christ- 
mas, Good Friday, or other days appointed 
by the church ? We quote as follows : — 

" In the Augsburg Confession, which was drawn up by 
Melancthon [and approved by Luther], to the question, 
' What ought we to think of the Lord's day ? ' it is an- 
swered that the Lord's day, Easter, Whitsuntide, and 
other such holy days ought to be kept, because they are 
appointed by the church, that all things may be done in 
order ; but that the observance of them is not to be 
thought necessary to salvation, nor the violation of them, 
if it be done without offense to others, to be regarded as a 
sin." — Cox's Sabbath Laics, p. 287. 

The Confession of the Swiss churches says 
on this point : — 

"The observance of the Lord's day is founded not on 
any commandment of God, but on the authority of the 
church; and the church may alter the day at pleasure. ,, 
— Idem. 

Tyndale, the great English reformer, said : — 

"As for the Sabbath, we be lords over the Sabbath, 
and may yet change it into Monday, or into any other 
day as we see need, or may make every tenth day holy 
day only if we see cause why! " — Tyndale 's Answer to 
More, book 1, chap. 25. 

Zwingle, the great Swiss reformer, regarded 
it thus : — 

Change op Sabbath. 10 



146 ATTITUDE OF THE REFORMERS. 

" For we are no way bound to time, but time ought so 
to serve us, that it is lawful, and permitted to each 
church, when necessity urges (as is usual to be done in 
harvest time), to transfer the solemnity and rest of the 
Lord's day, or Sabbath, to some other day." — Hessey, p. 
352. 

John Calvin said respecting the Sunday fes- 
tival : — 

" However, the ancients have not without sufficient 
reason substituted what we call the Lord's day in the 
room of the Sabbath. ... Yet I do not lay so much 
stress on the septenary number that I would oblige the 
church to an invariable adherence to it; nor will I con- 
demn those churches which have other solemn days for 
their assemblies, provided they keep at a distance from 
superstition." — Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, 
translated by John Allen, book 2, chap. 8, sec. 34. 

These words from Calvin, the founder of 
the Presbyterian Church, the strictest observ- 
ers of Sunday, perhaps, of any denomination, 
may surprise many. But we shall find that 
their views of Sunday strictness were of later 
origin. Certainly Calvin did not share in 
them ; for it seems he himself was not par- 
ticularly strict as a Sunday-keeper. Dr. Hes- 
sey says : — 

"Knox, the intimate friend of Calvin, visited Cal* 
vin, and, it is said, on one occasion found him enjoying 
the recreation of bowls on Sunday." — Hessey' [s Bampton 
Lectures on Sunday, p. 201. Edition 1866. 

Calvin had Servetus arrested on Sunday. 
John Barclay, a learned man of Scotch de- 
scent, whose early life was spent near Geneva, 
published the statement that Calvin and his 
friends at Geneva — 

"Debated whether the reformed, for the purpose of 
estranging themselves more completely from the Romish 



ATTITUDE OF THE REFORMERS. 147 

Church, should not adopt Thursday as the Christian 
Sabbath/' one reason assigned by Calvin being, "that it 
would be a proper instance of Christian liberty." 

These statements have been credited by 
many learned Protestants, and we are not 
aware that they have ever been disproved. 
Knox was not such a believer in the sacred- 
ness of Sunday as Presbyterians now are. 
Thus we see the leading reformers were not 
believers in Sunday sacredness, as many mod- 
ern Protestants are. They considered it a 
church festival, and not as receiving its au- 
thority from the fourth commandment. 

Carlstadt, the German reformer, kept the 
seventh-day Sabbath. He was a leading 
reformer, one who went farther in opposition 
to the Roman Church than Luther and many 
others. His position was in some respects 
more consistent than Luther's. He insisted 
on rejecting everything in the Catholic 
Church not authorized by the Scriptures, 
while Luther was determined to retain every- 
thing not expressly forbidden. Had Carl- 
stadt's position been taken, the Protestant 
church would have come much nearer the 
truth of the Bible on the Sabbath question 
than it has. 

Many will doubtless be surprised at these 
evidences of the low regard these early re- 
formers had for the Sunday Sabbath, admit- 
ting, as they did, that it was wholly an insti- 
tution of the church, and not required in the 
Scriptures. It is well known that this is not 
now the general position of many of the Prot- 
estant churches. They consider Sunday the 
Sabbath by divine appointment, and would 



148 ATTITUDE OF THE REFORMERS. 

highly resent such sentiments as history 
records concerning the opinions of the lead- 
ing reformers. Some may doubt the truth- 
fulness of these statements ; but we assure 
them that there are no facts better attested, 
and that we could present much evidence on 
this point substantiating what we have al- 
ready said. The real facts are these : In the 
great controversy in England between the 
Episcopalians and the Presbyterians, in the 
latter part of the sixteenth century, as the 
latter rejected the authority of the church 
and most of its festivals, while the Episcopa- 
lians required men to observe all the festivals 
of the church, it was clearly seen that in order 
to maintain the authority of Sunday, which 
the Presbyterians kept, they must find some 
other arguments in its behalf than those which 
had sustained it for so many ages. They had 
therefore either to give up Sunday, or try to 
find arguments for it in the Bible. They 
chose the latter course. 

Lyman Coleman, a first-day historian, thus 
states the promulgation of the modern opin- 
ion : — 

"The true doctrine of the Christian Sabbath was 
first promulgated by an English dissenter, the Rev. 
Nicholas Bound, D. D., of Norton, in the county of Suf- 
folk. About the year 1595 he published a famous book, 
entitled ' Sabbathum Yeteris et Novi Testamenti/ or the 
'True Doctrine of the Sabbath/ In this book he main- 
tained ' that the seventh part of our time ought to be 
devoted to God ; that Christians are bound to rest on the 
Lord's day as much as the Jews were on the Mosaic Sab- 
bath, the commandment about rest being moral and 
perpetual ; and that it was not lawful for persons to 
follow their studies or worldly business on that day, nor 
to use such pleasures and recreations as are permitted on 



ATTITUDE OF THE REFORMERS. 149 

other days/ This book spread with wonderful rapidity. 
The doctrine which is propounded called forth from 
many hearts a ready response, and the result was a most 
pleasing reformation in many parts of the kingdom. 
'It is almost incredible/ says Fuller, 'how taking this 
doctrine was, partly because of its own purity, and 
partly for the eminent piety of such persons as main- 
tained it ; so that the Lord's day, especially in cor- 
porations, began to be precisely kept ; people becoming 
a law unto themselves, forbearing such sports as yet by 
statutes permitted ; yea, many rejoicing at their own 
restraint herein/ " — Coleman's Ancient Christianity Exem- 
plified, chap. 26, sec. 2. 

This new doctrine " spread with wonderful 
rapidity," and has since been substantially 
adopted by many of the Protestant churches, 
but not by all. It is now the popular doctrine 
of the change of the Sabbath which is gen- 
erally held. Scattered hints of this doctrine 
in parts had been held before by a few ; but 
it never had been put forth as a whole in 
the form of a system. During some fourteen 
centuries of first-day Sabbath agitation, such 
a doctrine had never been promulgated. The 
Christian Fathers, to whom Sunday ele- 
vation is remotely traced, never heard of 
such a doctrine. The change they wrought 
was for an entirely different reason. It was 
founded upon "custom," "tradition," "volun- 
tary choice," but never upon any Bible 
authority, never upon the fourth command- 
ment. 

Of all the arrogant, preposterous claims — 
and they have been many — put forth in behalf 
of the "venerable day of the sun," the most 
preposterous is reserved for the last, — that of 
claiming for it the authority of the fourth 
commandment. It took some fourteen cen- 



150 ATTITUDE OF THE REFORMERS. 

turies to invent this claim, so contrary to 
the Bible record. If it is not " stealing the 
livery of heaven," for the first day of the week 
to shield itself under and clothe itself with 
the commandment of God, — "Remember the 
Sabbath day to keep it holy," "the seventh 
day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," — 
then we know not what would be. The com- 
mand requiring us to observe the day of 
Jehovah's rest which he blessed and set apart 
for a sacred use at the creation of the world, 
for man to keep ever holy, is now sanctimoni- 
ously appropriated to bolster up another day 
entirely, the one on which he commenced his 
work of creation. We do not know how 
mortal man could go farther in doing despite 
to the rest of the great God. 

Here is where first-day observers have in- 
trenched themselves for some two hundred 
years past. Here is where we find them to- 
day. The great heathen " memorial " of idola- 
try intrenched in the sacred temple of the me- 
morial of the Creator! The first day of the 
week claiming as its fundamental authority 
the commandment of God which was given 
to enforce the observance of the seventh 
day, an entirely different day ! 

Well does J. N. Andrews say concerning 
this last step taken to save Sunday : — 

"Such was the origin of the seventh-part-of-time 
theory, by which the seventh day is dropped out of the 
fourth commandment, and one day in seven slipped into 
its place, — a doctrine most opportunely framed at the 
very period when nothing else could save the venerable 
day of the sun. With the aid of this theory, the Sun- 
day of ' pope and pagan ' was able coolly to wrap itself 
in the fourth commandment, and then, in the character 



TRACES OF THE SABBATK i^\ 

of a divine institution, to challenge obedience from all 
Bible Christians. It could not cast away the other 
frauds on which its very existence had depended, and 
support its authority by this one alone. In the time 
of Constantine it ascended the throne of the Roman 
empire, and during the whole period of the Dark Ages 
it maintained its supremacy from the chair of St. Peter ; 
but now it had ascended to the throne of the Most High. 
And thus a day which God ' commanded not nor spake 
it, neither came it into' his 'mind/ was enjoined upon 
mankind with all the authority of his holy law/' — 
Andrews's History of the Sabbath, pp. 479, 480. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

TRACES OF THE SABBATH WHERE THE CATH- 
OLIC CHURCH COULD NOT SUPPRESS IT. 

HAVING traced the Sunday Sabbath from 
its first beginnings through the Dark Ages to 
its full adoption by the Protestant churches, 
we now return to the true Sabbath, to notice 
briefly its status since the Roman Catholic 
Church caused it to be discontinued where it 
had the power to do so. It will be remem- 
bered that we gave clear proof that it was 
kept in the early church for centuries, even 
till the Catholic Council of Laodicea, in A. D. 
364, abrogated it by an anathema. From 
that time forward it gradually disappeared 
from view in those countries where the Cath- 
olic Church had supreme influence. That 
church has made the most persistent efforts, 
in every way possible, to crush out the an- 
cient Sabbath, seeming to realize that those 
who clung to it struck at the very foundation 
of her claims. 



152 TRACES OF THE SABBATH. 

Sunday stands upon the authority of tradi- 
tion ; the Sabbath stands upon the authority 
of the commandments of God. When Sunday 
is observed, one really recognizes the ground- 
work of Catholic authority, viz., tradition, and, 
logically speaking, would be bound to accept 
her other festivals, ordinances, etc., which 
stand on precisely the same authority. But 
when a person ignores Sunday and keeps the 
Sabbath of the Lord, he sets aside every scrap 
of Catholic tradition, so that the whole Cath- 
olic stock in trade is gone, together with 
their strongest hold on Protestants. Hence 
we shall ever find Catholics stoutly opposed 
to the Sabbath. 

We shall now inquire whether the Sabbath 
did not continue to be observed in various 
places where the Roman Church had not in- 
fluence enough to suppress it. If this be so, 
it will afford strong additional evidence that 
the change of the Sabbath was wrought by 
the power of the Catholic Church. We shall 
be able to give only brief historical references 
in proof of this point, referring those who 
wish to investigate the matter thoroughly to 
the work before noticed, Andrews's " History 
of the Sabbath," a much more complete trea- 
tise than this can be. 

We first notice the early Christians of Great 
Britain who were not connected with Rome 
before the mission of Augustine in A. D. 596. 
These were a pious, humble class of people, 
and were in an eminent degree Bible Chris- 
tians. 

"An Irish presbyter, Columba, feeling himself stirred 
with missionary zeal, and doubtless knowing the wretched 



TRACES OF THE SABBATH. 153 

condition of the savage Scots and Picts in the year 565, 
took with him twelve other missionaries, and passed 
over to Scotland." — M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclopedia, 
vol. 2, p. 601. 

They were called Culdees, and settled and 
made their head-quarters on the little isle of 
Iona. They had, for the most part, " a simple 
and primitive form of Christianity," very dif- 
ferent from the pomp of Romanism. 

Two eminent Catholic authors speak of Co- 
lumba as follows : — 

" Having continued his labors in Scotland thirty-four 
years, he clearly and openly foretold his death, and on 
Saturday, the ninth of June, said to his disciple Diermit, 
1 This day is called the Sabbath, that is, the day of rest, 
and such will it truly be to me; for it will put an end to 
my labors/ " — Butler's Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and 
Principal Saints, art. St. Columba, A. d. 597. 

"To-day is Saturday, the day which the Holy Script- 
ures call the Sabbath, or rest. And it will truly be my 
day of rest, for it shall be the last of my laborious life." 
— The Monks of the West, vol. 2, p. 104. 

This language proves that Columba be- 
lieved that Saturday was the true Bible Sab- 
bath. It also shows his satisfaction in the 
fact, in view of his immediate death. We 
have never known an observer of Sunday to 
have any feelings of pleasure on his death-bed 
in view of the fact that Saturday was the Bible 
Sabbath. Hence we conclude that this man 
of God, the leader of these missionaries, was 
an observer of the ancient Sabbath. 

There had been no class of dissenters from 
the Catholic Church more worthy of regard 
than the Waldenses, or Vaudois, whose prin- 
cipal settlement was in the valleys of the Alps 
in Piedmont, though at times there were com- 



154 TRACES OF THE SAB BATE. 

panies of them scattered in many of the coun- 
tries of Europe Their locating in these val- 
leys occurred between the time of Constan- 
tine and the full development of the Roman 
Catholic Church. There is some confusion 
as to the exact time among the various au- 
thorities. It seems to be a settled fact among 
historians that the cause of their seeking these 
retired valleys was their desire to maintain 
the purity of their religion, and to escape the 
corrupting influences so prevalent in the more 
thickly populated portions of the country. 
So they retired from public view. They had 
a translation of the Bible in their own tongue, 
and taught it with great diligence to their 
children. Catholic writers declare that some 
of them could repeat nearly the whole of the 
Holy Scriptures. They sent out missionaries 
to all parts of Europe during the darkest days 
of the papacy. Many of these witnessed for 
the truth with their lives. Multitudes of them 
died in the various persecutions by the Cath- 
olics. Time after time they were driven from 
their homes into the mountains and caves, and 
many thousands of men, women, and children 
were put to death, and their property and 
homes confiscated and destroyed. 

There is conclusive evidence that a portion, 
at least, of the Waldenses observed the ancient 
Sabbath in the days of their greatest purity. 
A considerable portion of this people were 
called by the significant designation of Sab- 
batiy Sabbatatiy or Insabbatati. Mr. Robin- 
son, the historian, quotes out of Gretser the 
words of Goldastus, as follows : — 



TRACES OF THE SABBATB. 155 

" Insabbatati [they were called] not because they 
were circumcised, but because they kept the Jewish 
Sabbath/' — Ecclesiastical Researches, chap. 10, p. 303, 

Goldastus was a learned Swiss historian 
and jurist, who was born in 1576. He was a 
Calvinist writer of note. Archbishop Usher 
acknowledges that many understood they 
were called by these names because they 
kept the Jewish Sabbath, though he thought 
it was for another reason. 

Just before the great Protestant Reforma- 
tion, — 

"Louis XII., king of France, being informed by the 
enemies of the Waldenses inhabiting a part of the prov- 
ince of Provence, that several heinous crimes were laid 
to their account, sent the Master of Requests and a cer- 
tain doctor of the Sorbonne, who was confessor to His 
Majesty, to make inquiry into the matter. On their re- 
turn they reported that they had visited all the parishes 
where they dwelt, had inspected their places of worship, 
but they had found there no images nor signs of the 
ornaments belonging to the mass nor any of the ceremo- 
nies of the Romish Church ; much less could they dis- 
cover any traces of those crimes with which they were 
charged. On the contrary, they kept the Sabbath day, 
observed the ordinance of baptism according to the 
primitive church, instructed their children in the arti- 
cles of the Christian faith and the commandments of 
God. The king, having read the report of his commis- 
sioners, said with an oath that they were better men 
than himself or his people." — Jones's Church History, 
vol. 2, chap. 5, sec. 4. 

"The respectable French historian De Thou says that 
the Yaudois keep the commandments of the decalogue, 
and allow among them of no wickedness, detesting per- 
juries, imprecations, quarrels, seditions, etc." — History 
of the Vaudois, by Bresse, p. 126. 

One portion of the Waldenses were called 
Passaginians, probably because they lived 



156 TRACES OF THE SABBATH. 

high up in the passes of the Alps. Thus 
Mosheim speaks of them : — 

"In Lombardy, which was the principal residence of 
the Italian heretics, there sprung up a singular sect, 
known, for what reason I cannot tell, by the denomina- 
tion of Passaginians, and also by that of the Circum- 
cised. Like the other sects already mentioned, they had 
the utmost aversion to the dominion and discipline of 
the church of Rome ; but they were at the same time 
distinguished by two religious tenets which were pecul- 
iar to themselves The first was a notion that the ob- 
servance of the law of Moses in everything except the 
offering of sacrifices, was obligatory upon Christians ; in 
consequence of which they circumcised their followers, 
abstained from those meats the use of which was pro- 
hibited unter the Mosaic economy, and celebrated the 
Jewish Sabbath/' — Ecclesiastical History, cent. 12, part 
2, chap. 5, sec 14. 

But Mr. Benedict, in his " History of the 
Baptist Denomination," speaks of them as 
follows : — 

"The account of their practicing circumcision is un- 
doubtedly a slanderous story, forged by their enemies, 
,and probably arose in this way : Because they observed 
the seventh day, they were called, by way of derision, 
Jews, as the Sabbatarians are frequently at this day ; and 
if they were Jews, it followed, of course, that they either 
did, or ought to, circumcise their followers. This was 
probably the reasoning of their enemies ; but that they 
actually practiced the bloody rite is altogether improb- 
able."— Vol. 2, p. 414. Edition 1813. 

Such has ever been the conduct of the 
Romish Church — to blacken the character of 
its enemies by false reports. It is nothing 
uncommon at the present day for even Prot- 
estant ministers to make such charges upon 
Sabbatarians — that they are Jews, and keep 
all the law of Moses, because they observe 
the Sabbath. They might know, if they 



TRACES OF THE SABBATH. 157 

cared to, that Sabbatarians make a great dis- 
tinction between the moral law of ten com- 
mandments, which requires the observance of 
the seventh-day Sabbath, and the ceremonial 
law of types, shadows, circumcision, etc. 
The former they believe to be binding on all ; 
the latter was abolished at the cross of Christ. 
The Petrobrusians were a sect of French 
Christians who, in the twelfth century, wit- 
nessed for God in opposition to the papacy. 
They were also observers of the Sabbath. 
This is stated by Dr. Francis White, lord 
bishop of Ely, who was appointed by the 
king of England to write against the Sabbath 
in opposition to Mr. Brabourne, a Sabbata- 
rian. He says :— 

"In St. Bernard's days it was condemned in the Pe- 
trobruysans." — Treatise of the Sabbath Day, p. 8. 

The Sabbath-keepers of the eleventh cen- 
tury were of sufficient importance to attract 
the attention of the pope. Gregory VII. , 
one of the most lordly, domineering popes 
that ever occupied the papal chair, was at 
that time ruling the church with an iron 
hand. Dr. Heylyn says that — 

"Gregory, of that name the seventh [about A. D. 
1074], condemned those who taught that it was not 
lawful to do work on the day of the Sabbath." — History 
of the Sabbath, part 2, chap. 5, sec. 1. 

This is clear evidence that there was still a 
respectable number of Sabbath-keepers, even 
in those countries where that church had au- 
thority ; for surely the pope would not pro- 
nounce a curse upon them unless such per- 
sons existed. Thus we see the Sabbath still 



158 TRACES OF THE SABBATH. 

existing among those opposed to the Catho- 
lic Church, even in Italy itself, where the 
pope's power was greatest. We now look 
abroad to countries where the pope never 
had jurisdiction, in search of those who still 
revere the Sabbath of the Lord. 

The gospel extended its influence all 
through Northern and Central Africa in the 
early part of the Christian dispensation. 
There were many Christian churches on that 
continent. Africa indeed " stretched out her 
hands to God." But after the conquest of 
the northern portions of that country by the 
Mohammedans, and for a long time before 
that, the Christians of Abyssinia were lost 
to the rest of the Christian world. Says 
Gibbon : — 

"Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their 
religion, the Ethiopians slept near a thousand years, for- 
getful of the world, by whom they were forgotten." — 
Decline and Fall, chap. 47, par. 38. 

But after the great discoveries of the fif- 
teenth and sixteenth centuries, they became 
known again to the Christian world. They 
were found observing the ancient Sabbath, 
although they were greatly affected by the 
pagan and Mohammedan errors so long sun- 
rounding them, as might be expected. Yet 
it is a fact of no little significance in the con- 
sideration of this subject, that this large body 
of Christians, which had been so long sep- 
arated from the influence of the Catholic 
Church, were found after a thousand years 
still observing the seventh day. At the time 
of their separation from the rest of the Chris- 
tian world, they, with others, were observing 



TRACES OF THE SABBATH. 159 

both Sunday and the Sabbath. When found 
nearly a thousand years later, they were do- 
ing the same, as Mr. Geddes says : — 

"They deny purgatory, and know nothing of confir- 
mation and extreme unction ; they condemn graven im- 
ages ; they keep both Saturday and Sunday."-— Church 
History of Ethiopia, pp. 34, 35. 

The ambassador of the king of Ethiopia, at 
the court of Lisbon, gave the following rea- 
sons for keeping the Sabbath : — 

"Because God, after he had finished the creation of 
the world, rested thereon ; which day, as God would 
have it called the holy of holies, so the not celebrating 
thereof with great honor and devotion seems to be 
plainly contrary to God's will and precept, who will suf- 
fer heaven and earth to pass away sooner than his word ; 
and that, especially, since Christ came not to destroy the 
law, but to fulfill it. It is not, therefore, in imitation of 
the Jews, but in obedience to Christ and his holy apos- 
tles, that we observe that day." — Church History of 
Ethiopia, pp. 87, 88. 

This account was given by the ambassador 
in 1534. In the beginning of the next cen- 
tury the emperor of Abyssinia was induced 
to submit to the pope in these words : — 

"I confess that the pope is the vicar of Christ, the 
successor of St. Peter, and the sovereign of the world. 
To him I swear true obedience, and at his feet I offer 
my person and kingdom." — Gibbon's Decline and Fall of 
the Roman Empire, chap. 47, par. 39. 

Let the reader now mark what followed : 
As soon as the emperor had thus submitted 
himself, he was obliged to put forth a decree 
forbidding the observance of the Sabbath. 
Geddes says he — 

"Set forth a proclamation prohibiting all his subjects, 
upon severe penalties, to observe Saturday any longer." 
— Church History of Ethiopia, \>\>. 311, 312. 



160 TRACES OF THE SjlBBATH. 

Gibbon expresses the edict thus : — 

" The Abyssinians were enjoined to work and to play 
on the Sabbath/' — Decline and Fall, chap. 47, par. 39. 

Thus we see the Roman Church never 
missed a chance to give the ancient Sabbath 
a thrust when the opportunity presented it- 
self. This one desire has marked its course 
throughout. After a space of time the tyr- 
anny of the Catholics brought a terrible strug- 
gle, which caused their overthrow, and the 
Abyssinians returned to the observance of 
the Sabbath, and have continued to do so ever 
since. These facts present a striking evi- 
dence of the hatred of the Roman Church 
toward the Sabbath. It also conclusively 
proves the existence of the Sabbath in the 
church where the popish power could not 
abrogate it. 

We next notice the Armenians of the East 
Indies. Here was quite a large body of 
Christians who had little or no connection 
with the churches of Europe for many centu- 
ries. So they were preserved from many of 
the false doctrines of the great apostasy. Mr. 
Massie describes them as follows : — 

"Separated from the Western world for a thousand 
years, they were naturally ignorant of many novelties 
introduced by the councils and decrees of the Lateran; 
and their conformity with the faith and practice of the first 
ages laid them open to the unpardonable guilt of heresy 
and schism, as estimated by the church of Rome. 'We 
are Christians, and not idolaters/ was their expressive 
reply when required to do homage to the image of the 
Virgin Mary. ... La Croze states them at fifteen 
hundred churches, and as many towns and villages. 
They refused to recognize the pope, and declared they 
had never heard of him; they asserted the purity and 



TRACES OF THE SABBATH. \Q\ 

primitive truth of their faith since they came, and their 
bishops had for thirteen hundred years been sent, from 
the place where the followers of Jesus were first called 
Christians." — Continental India, vol. 2, pp. 116, 117. 

Mr. Yeates hints at the Sabbatarian char- 
acter of these Christians. He says that 
Saturday — 

"Among them is a festival day, agreeable to the ancient 
practice of the church." — East Indian Church History, 
pp. 133, 134. 

The same fact is also again hinted at by the 
same writer as follows :— r 

"The Inquisition was set up at Goa in the Indies, at 
the instance of Francis Xaverius [a famous Romish 
saint], who signified by letters to the Pope John III., 
Nov. 10, 1545, 'That the Jewish wickedness spreads 
more and more in the parts of the East Indies subject to 
the kingdom of Portugal, and therefore he earnestly 
besought the said king, that to cure so great an evil he 
would take care to send the office of the Inquisition into 
those countries.'" — Idem, pp. 139, 140 

There can be no reasonable doubt that the 
"Jewish wickedness ,? here referred to is the 
same as observing Saturday " agreeable to 
the ancient practice of the church," spoken of 
above. We here have another evidence of 
the hatred of the Roman Church to the Sab- 
bath. It must be put down by the Inquisi- 
tion, if found in existence where that church 
had authority. Since that time the East 
Indies have fallen under the dominion of 
Great Britain. Some years since, Mr. Bu- 
chanan, a distinguished minister of the 
Church of England, visited India for the pur- 
pose of becoming acquainted with this body 
of Christians. He says they have preserved 
themselves most free from Mohammedan and 

Change op Sabbath. 11 



162 TRACES OF THE SABBATH. 

papal corruptions, and that they have a 
translation of the Bible in the Armenian 
language, which has been pronounced the 
" queen of versions." He says : — 

"They have preserved the Bible in its purity; and 
their doctrines are, as far as the author knows, the 
doctrines of the Bible. Besides, they maintain the sol- 
emn observance of Christian worship throughout our 
empire on the seventh day, and they have as many 
spires pointing to heaven among the Hindoos as we our- 
selves/' — Buchanan's Christian Researches in Asia, p. 
259. 

Purchas, a writer of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, also speaks of several sects of Eastern 
Christians, " continuing from ancient times," 
as Syrians, Jacobites, Nestorians, Maronites, 
and Armenians. It seems evident that these 
are identical with those now known as Ar- 
menians. He says : — 

"They keep Saturday holy, nor esteem Saturday fast 
lawful but on Easter even. They have solemn service 
on Saturdays, eat flesh, and feast it bravely like the 
Jews/' — Purchas, his Pilgrimage, part 2, book 8, chap. 6, 
sec. 5. 

This writer, like many first-day authors, 
Catholic and Protestant, even at the pres- 
ent time, speaks disrespectfully of those 
Christians who observed the Sabbath. But 
this testimony, with the others, seems to 
leave no possible doubt that the Armenians 
observed the Sabbath. 

Andrews, in his " History of the Sabbath," 
page 463, says concerning other Sabbath- 
keepers : — 

"When the Reformation had lifted the vail of dark- 
ness that covered the nations of Europe, Sabbath-keep- 



TRACES OF THE SABBATH. 163 

ers were found in Transylvania, Bohemia, Russia, Ger- 
many, Holland, France, and England. It was not the 
Reformation which gave existence to these Sabbatarians , 
for the leaders of the Reformation, as a body, were not 
friendly to such views. On the contrary, these observ- 
ers of the Sabbath appear to be remnants of the ancient 
Sabbath-keeping churches that had witnessed for the 
truth during the Dark Ages." 

He proceeds to cite various classes of these 
in the countries mentioned, and gives the 
authorities to prove it, which the inquiring 
reader can investigate in that valuable work. 

In summing up the facts presented con- 
cerning these Sabbath-keeping bodies which 
continued through the Dark Ages, we reach 
the following conclusions : — 

1. The Waldenses (at least a large portion 
of them) who sought retired places in the val- 
leys of the mountains, to be able to worship 
God according to the ancient practice of the 
church and according to the Bible, kept the 
ancient Sabbath till persecuted by the Catho- 
lic Church and almost exterminated. 

2. The Abyssinian Church, shut away from 
the papal church for a thousand years, when 
discovered were found observing the seventh 
day of the week as the early Christians did ; 
but as soon as the Catholics got power to do 
so, they at once abased the Sabbath, and 
would not allow it to be observed while they 
remained in the kingdom. 

3. The Armenian Christians, also shut 
away from the Roman Church for the same 
length of time, when visited by Europeans, 
were found keeping the seventh day, or Sat- 
urday, according to the ancient practice of 



164 TRACES OF THE SABBATH. 

believers during the first centuries. But true 
to their hatred of the Sabbath, as soon as the 
Romish priests could do so, they had the 
cruel Inquisition brought in to abolish by 
torture the practice of keeping the ancient 
memorial of creation. So also was it in 
many other countries. It is the same old 
story in every instance. 

We have now followed for fifteen centuries 
the work of the Roman Catholic Church in 
its continued, persevering effort to over- 
throw the Sabbath which God commanded, 
and to elevate the Sunday, the weekly memo- 
rial of sun-worship, the first form of idolatry, 
into its place, transforming it into a Christian 
institution ; and we see but one purpose 
throughout. This work always centered at 
Rome, from the time the first step was taken 
turning the Sabbath into a fast to disgrace it, 
while making Sunday a joyful festival, till we 
reach the famous roll " which came down 
from heaven," threatening destruction upon 
those who should "fail to keep the Lord's 
day;" yes, continuing even till the present 
day, since Protestants have joined in the 
same work of elevating Sunday. We cannot 
question the fact that the papal church 
changed the Sabbath. But lest any should 
think we have unfairly judged that church 
in thus speaking, we propose to give the 
testimony of many Catholic writers them- 
selves on this subject. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

WHAT CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES SAY ABOUT 

THE CHANGE EFFECTED BY 

THEIR CHURCH. 

In considering questions of importance, 
like the subject under discussion, it is cer- 
tainly reasonable that the parties accused 
should have the privilege of testifying for 
themselves. We have said very plainly that 
the papists, during the long continuance of 
the great apostasy, which resulted in the de- 
velopment of their church, have changed 
the Sabbath from the day which the Holy 
Scriptures required to another day, without 
the slightest Bible authority for so doing. 
Do they admit this charge to be true ? or do 
they deny it ? This is a question of real im- 
portance, one which we wish fairly and can- 
didly to examine. We will quote Catholic 
authorities alone on this point. 

The pope is the head of the Catholic 
Church ; the head directs the body. The 
" Roman Decretalia" is an authoritative w r ork 
in the Roman ecclesiastical law. Each pope, 
when invested with the " succession," de- 
clares the papal decretals to be true. The 
" Decretalia" ascribes power to the pope to 
change God's law or any other law. Thus : — 

"He can pronounce sentences and judgments in con- 
tradiction to the right of nations, and to the law of God 
and man. . . . He can free himself from the com- 
mands of the apostles, he being their superior, and from 
the rules of the Old Testament/' etc. 

[165] 



166 CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES. 

"The pope has power to change times, to abrogate 
laws, and to dispense with all things, even the precepts 
of Christ." — Decretal de Translat. Episcop. Cap. 

"The pope's will stands for reason. He can dispense 
above the law, and of wrong make right by correcting 
and changing laics." — Pope Nicholas, Dis. 96. 

"The pope is free from all laws, so that he cannot in- 
cur any sentence of irregularity, suspension, excommu- 
nication, or penalty for any crime/' — Dis. 40. 

Surely the pope is a wonderful personage. 
He can be no other than the embodiment of 
that power which was to " think to change 
times and the law." Dan. 7 : 25. Here we 
see claims of plentitude of power sufficient to 
make any changes whatever which he might 
desire to make. What do papists say about 
changing the Sabbath ? In the " Catholic 
Catechism of Christian Religion" we have 
the following questions and answers : — 

" Ques. — What does God ordain by this command- 
ment ? 

"Am. — He ordains that we sanctify, in a special 
manner, this day on which he rested from the labor of 
creation. 

" Q— What is this day of rest ? 

"A. — The seventh day of the week, or Saturday ; for 
he employed six days in creation, and rested on the 
seventh. Gen. 2:2; Heb. 4 : 1, etc. 

et Q. — Is it, then, Saturday we should sanctify in or- 
der to obey the ordinance of God ? 

"A. — During the old law, Saturday was the day 
sanctified ; but the church, instructed by Jesus Christ, 
and directed by the Spirit of God, has substituted Sun- 
day for Saturday ; so now we sanctify the first, not the 
seventh day. Sunday means, and now is, the day of the 
Lord. 

" Q. — Had the church power to make such change ? 

" A. — Certainly ; since the Spirit of God is her guide, 
the change is inspired by the Holy Spirit/' 



CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES. \ffl 

In another Catholic work, called the 
"Abridgment of Christian Doctrine," page 
58, the Catholic Church asserts its power to 
change the law, in the following manner : — 

" Ques. — How prove you that the church hath power 
to command feasts and holy days ? 

" Ans. — By the very act of changing the Sabbath into 
Sunday, which Protestants allow of ; and therefore they 
fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, 
and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same 
church. 

" Q. — How prove you that ? 

"A. — Because by keeping Sunday they acknowledge 
the church's power to ordain feasts, and to command 
them under sin ; and by not keeping the rest by her 
commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power." 

In the " Catholic Christian Instructed," p. 
202, is presented the following list of feast- 
days, which all rest upon the same foundation, 
namely, the authority of the Catholic Church. 
Of these, Sunday takes the lead : — 

" Ques. — What are the days which the church com- 
mands to be kept holy? 

" Ans.—l. The Sunday, or our Lord's day, which we 
observe by apostolic tradition, instead of the Sabbath. 
2. The feasts of our Lord's nativity, or Christmas day ; 
his circumcision, or New Year's day ; the Epiphany, or 
twelfth day ; Easter day, or the day of our Lord's resur- 
rection ; the day of our Lord's ascension; Whitsunday, 
or the day of the coming of the Holy Ghost ; Trinity 
Sunday ; Corpus Christi, or the feast of the Blessed Sac- 
rament. 3. We keep the days of the Annuciation, and 
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 4. We observe 
the feast of All-S aints ; of St. John Baptist ; of the holy 
apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul. 5. In this kingdom 
[Britain-Ireland] we keep the feast of St. Patrick, our 
principal patron." 

From pp. 202, 203 of the work last quoted, 
we take the following additional testimony, 
which also has a very important bearing on 



168 CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES. 

the question of the Sabbath, as the points re- 
ferred to are vital ones in this issue : — 

" Ques. — What warrant have you for keeping the 
Sunday preferably to the ancient Sabbath, which was 
the Saturday ? 

" Arts. — We have for it the authority of the Catholic 
Church, and apostolical tradition. 

" Q. — Does the Scripture anywhere command the 
Sunday to be kept for the Sabbath ? 

"A. — The Scripture commands us to hear the church 
(St. Matt. 18 : 17; St. Luke 10 : 16), and to hold fast the 
traditions of the apostles. 2 Thess. 2 : 15. But the 
Scripture does not in particular mention this change of 
the Sabbath. St. John speaks of the Lord's day (Rev. 
1 : 10); but he does not tell us what day of the week this 
was, much less does he tell us that this day was to take 
[the] place of the Sabbath ordained in the command- 
ments. St. Luke also speaks of the disciples' meeting 
together to break bread on the first day of the week. 
Acts 20 : 7. And St. Paul (1 Cor. 16 : 2) orders that on 
the first day of the week the Corinthians should lay by 
in store what they designed to bestow in charity on the 
faithful in Judea ; but neither the one nor the other tells 
us that this first day of the week was to be hencefor- 
ward the day of worship, and the Christian Sabbath : so 
that truly, the best authority we have for this is the tes- 
timony and ordinance of the church. And therefore, 
those who pretend to be so religious of the Sunday, 
whilst they take no notice of other festivals ordained by 
the same church authority, show that they act by humor, 
and not by reason and religion : since Sundays and holy- 
days all stand upon the same foundation ; viz., the ordin- 
ance of the church." 

The " Doctrinal Catechism," pp. 174, 352, 
offers proof that Protestants are not guided 
by the Scriptures. We present two of the 
questions and answers : — 

" Ques. — Have you any other way of proving that 
the church has power to institute festivals of precept ? 

" Ans. — Had she not such power, she could not have 
done that in which all modern religionists agree with 



CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES, 169 

her, — she could not have substituted the observance of 
Sunday, the first day of the week, lor the observance of 
Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is 
no scriptural authority." 

" Q- — When Protestants do profane work upon Sat- 
urday, or the seventh day of the week, do they follow 
the Scripture as their only rule of faith, — do they find 
this permission clearly laid down in the Sacred Volume ? 

"A. — On the contrary, they have only the authority 
of tradition for this practice. In profaning Saturday, 
they violate one of God's commandments, which he has 
never clearly abrogated, — ' Remember that thou keep 
holy the Sabbath day/" 

Then follows a statement and refutation of 
the arguments which Protestants usually rely 
on to prove the change of the Sabbath, such 
as the resurrection of Christ, the pouring out 
of the Spirit, the Lord's day of Rev. 1 : 10 ; 
Acts 20 : 7 ; and 1 Cor. 16 : 2, showing that 
these scriptures contain no evidence of the 
institution of Sunday observance, but that 
the practice rests solely upon the authority 
of the Catholic Church. 

In a Roman Catholic work entitled " The 
Shortest Way to End Disputes about Reli- 
gion," by the Rev. Dr. Manning, approved by 
the Rt. Rev. Bishop Fitzpatrick, Coadjutor of 
the Diocese of Boston, Mass., page 19, we 
find the following : — 

" As zealous as Protestants are against the church's 
infallibility, they are forced to depend wholly upon her 
authority in many articles that cannot be evidently 
proved from any text of Scripture, yet are of very great 
importance. 

"1. The lawfulness for Christians to work upon 
Saturday, contrary, in appearance, to the express com- 
mand of God, who bids us ' keep the Sabbath holy,' and 
tells us the seventh day of the week is that day. 

"2. The lawfulness and validity of infant baptism, 
whereof there is no example in Scripture." 



170 CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES. 

In accordance with the instruction given 
in the catechisms from which the foregoing 
quotations were made, a work entitled " The 
Clifton Tracts " (Catholic), vol. 4, chap. 4, un- 
der the title, " A Question for all Bible Chris- 
tians," makes a precise statement of the posi- 
tions held respectively by Catholics and Prot- 
estants on this question, in the following forci- 
ble language : — 

"I am going to propose a very plain and serious 
question, to which I would entreat all who profess to 
follow 'the Bible, and the Bible only/ to give their 
most earnest attention. It is this : Why do you not 
keep holy the Sabbath day ? 

"The command of Almighty God stands clearly writ- 
ten in the Bible in these words : 'Remember the Sab- 
bath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, 
and do all thy work ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath 
of the Lord thy God ; in it thou shalt not do any work/ 
Ex. 20 : 8, 9. Such being God's command, then, I ask 
again, Why do you not obey it ? Why do you not 
keep holy the Sabbath day ? 

"You will answer me, perhaps, that you do keep 
holy the Sabbath day ; for that you abstain from all 
worldly business, and diligently go to church, and say 
your prayers, and read your Bible at home, every Sun- 
day of your lives. 

"But Sunday is not the Sabbath day; Sunday is the 
first day of the week; the Sabbath day was the seventh 
day of the week. Almighty God did not give a com- 
mandment that men should keep holy one day in seven; 
but he named his own day, and said distinctly, Thou 
shalt keep holy the seventh day; and he assigned a 
reason for choosing this day rather than any other, — a 
reason which belongs only to the seventh day of the 
week, and cannot be applied to the rest. He says, ' For 
in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, 
and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; 
wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hal- 
lowed it/ 

" Almighty God ordered that all men should rest 
from their labor on the seventh day, because he too had 



CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES. 171 

rested on that day; he did not rest on Sunday, but on 
Saturday. On Sunday, which is the first day of the 
week, he began the work of creation, he did not finish 
it ; it was on Saturday that he ' ended his work which he 
had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his 
work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh 
day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested 
from all his work which God created and made.' Gen. 
2:2, 3. Nothing can be more plain and easy to be 
understood than all this, and there is nobody who 
attempts to deny it; it is acknowledged by everybody 
that the day which Almighty God appointed to be kept 
holy was Saturday, not Sunday. Why do you, then, 
keep holy the Sunday, and not the Saturday? 

"You tell me that Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath, 
but that the Christian Sabbath has been changed to 
Sunday. Changed ! but by whom? Who has authority 
to change an express command of Almighty God? 
When God has spoken, and said, Thou shalt keep holy 
the seventh day, who shall dare to say, Nay, thou 
mayest work, and do all manner of worldly business on 
the seventh day; but thou shalt keep holy the first day 
in its stead? This is the most important question, which 
I know not how you can answer. 

" You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the 
Bible, and the Bible only; and yet in so important a 
matter as the observance of one day in seven as a holy 
day, you go against the plain letter of the Bible, and put 
another day in the place of that day which the Bible has 
commanded. The command to keep holy the seventh 
day is one of the ten commandments; you believe that 
the other nine are still binding; who gave you authority 
to tamper with the fourth? If you are consistent with 
your own principles, if you really follow the Bible, and 
the Bible only, you ought to be able to produce some 
portion of the New Testament in which this fourth 
commandment is expressly altered, or, at least, from 
which you may confidently infer that it was the will of 
God that Christians should make that change in its 
observance which you have made. . . . 

" The present generation of Protestants keep Sunday 
holy instead of Saturday, because they received it as a 
part of the Christian religion from the last generation, 
and that generation received it from the generation 
before, and so on backward from one generation to 



172 CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES. 

another, by a continual succession, until we come to the 
time of the (so-called) Reformation, when it so hap- 
pened that those who conducted the change of religion 
in this country, left this particular portion of Catholic 
faith and practice untouched. 

"But, had it happened otherwise, — had some one or 
other of the ' reformers ' taken it into his head to 
denounce the observance of Sunday as a popish corrup- 
tion and superstition, and to insist upon it that Saturday 
was the day which God had appointed to be kept holy, 
and that he had never authorized the observance of any 
other, — all Protestants would have been obliged, in 
obedience to their professed principle of following the 
Bible, and the Bible only, either to acknowledge this 
teaching as true, and to return to the observance of the 
ancient Sabbath, or else to deny that there is any Sab- 
bath at all. And so, in like manner, any one at the 
present day who should set about, honestly and without 
prejudice, to draw up for himself a form of religious 
belief and practice out of the written word of God, must 
needs come to the same conclusion; he must either 
believe that the Sabbath is still binding upon men's con- 
sciences, because of the divine command, Thou shalt 
keep holy the seventh day; or he must believe that no 
Sabbath at all is binding upon them, because of the 
apostolic injunction, Let no man judge you in respect of 
a festival day, or of the Sabbaths, which are a shadow of 
things to come, but the body is Christ's. Either one or 
the other of these conclusions he might honestly come to; 
but he would know nothing whatever of a Christian 
Sabbath, distinct from the ancient, celebrated on a dif- 
ferent day and observed in a different manner, simply 
because Holy Scripture itself nowhere speaks of such 
a thing. 

" Now mind, in all this you would greatly misunder- 
stand me if you supposed I was quarreling with you for 
acting in this manner on a true and right principle, — in 
other words, a Catholic principle, viz., the acceptance, 
without hesitation, of that which has been handed down 
to you by an unbroken tradition. I would not tear from 
you a single one of those shreds and fragments of divine 
truth which you have retained. God forbid ! They are 
the most precious things you possess, and by God's blessing 
may serve as clues to bring you out of that labyrinth of 
error in which you find yourselves involved, far more by 



CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES. 173 

the fault of your forefathers, three centuries ago, than 
by your own. What I do quarrel with you for is, not 
your inconsistency in occasionally acting on a true 
principle, but your adoption, as a general rule, of a false 
one. You keep the Sunday, and not the Saturday; and 
you do so rightly; for this was the practice of all 
Christians when Protestantism began; but you have 
abandoned other Catholic observances, which were 
equally universal at that day, preferring the novel- 
ties introduced by the men who invented Protestant- 
ism to the unvarying tradition of above fifteen hundred 
years. 

"We blame you, not for making Sunday your weekly 
holiday, instead of Saturday, but for rejecting tradition, 
which is the only safe and clear rule by which this observ- 
ance can be justified. In outward act, we do the same as 
yourselves in this matter; we, too, no longer observe the 
ancient Sabbath, but Sunday, in its stead; but then there is 
this important difference between us, that we do not pre- 
tend, as you do, to derive our authority for so doing from 
a book; but we derive it from a living teacher, and that 
teacher is the church. Moreover, we believe that not 
everything which God would have us to know and to 
do is written in the Bible, but that there is an unwritten 
word of God, which we are bound to believe and obey, 
just as we believe and obey the Bible itself, according 
to that saying of the apostle, ■ Stand fast, and hold the 
traditions which you have learned, ichether by word, or 
by our epistle.' 2 Thess. 2 : 14. [Douay Bible.] 

" We Catholics, then, have precisely the same au- 
thority for keeping Sunday holy, instead of Saturday, 
as we have for every other article of our creed, namely, 
the authority of ' the church of the living God, the 
pillar and ground of the truth ' (1 Tim. 3 :15) ; whereas, 
you who are Protestants have really no authority for it 
whatever; for there is no authority for it in the Bible, 
and you will not allow that there can be authority for it 
anywhere else. Both you and we do, in fact, follow 
tradition in this matter; but we follow it, believing it to 
be a part of God's word, and the church to be its 
divinely appointed guardian and interpreter; you follow 
it, denouncing it all the time as a fallible and treacherous 
guide, which often ' makes the commandment of God of 
none effect.' " 



174 CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES. 

In another Catholic work, called a " Trea- 
tise of Thirty Controversies," we find the 
following cutting reproof: — 

" The word of God commandeth the seventh day to 
be the Sabbath of our Lord, and to be kept holy; you 
[Protestants] , without any precept of Scripture, change 
it to the first day of the week, only authorized by our 
traditions. Divers English Puritans oppose against 
this point, that the observation of the first da}^ is proved 
out of Scripture, where it is said, the first day of the 
week. Acts 20 : 7; 1 Cor. 16 : 2; Rev. 1 : 10. Have they 
not spun a fair thread in quoting these places? If we 
should produce no better for purgatory, prayers for the 
dead, invocation of the saints, and the like, they might 
have good cause indeed to laugh us to scorn; for where 
is it written these were Sabbath days in which those 
meetings were kept? Or where is it ordained that they 
should be always observed? Or, which is the sum of all, 
where is it decreed that the observance of the first day 
should abrogate or abolish the sanctifying of the seventh 
day, which God commanded everlastingly to be kept 
holy? Not one of those is expressed in the written 
word of God." 

And finally, W. Lockhart, B. A, of Ox- 
ford, in the Toronto (Catholic) Mirror, of- 
fered the following " challenge " to all the 
Protestants of Ireland, a challenge as well 
calculated for this latitude as that. He 
says : — 

"I do, therefore, solemnly challenge the Protestants 
of Ireland to prove, by plain texts of Scripture, the 
questions concerning the obligation of the Christian 
Sabbath, 1. That Christians may work on Saturday, the 
old seventh day ; 2. That they are bound to keep holy 
the first day, namely, Sunday; 3. That they are not 
bound to keep holy the seventh day also." 

In pursuing this subject further, we quote 
the language of John Gilmary Shea, LL. D., a 
representative man among Catholics, and an 
accomplished writer : — 



CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES. 175 

"The Sunday, as a day of the week set apart for the 
obligatory public worship of Almighty God, to be sancti- 
fied by suspension of all servile labor, trade, and worldly 
avocations, and by exercises of devotion, is purely a cre- 
ation of the Catholic Church." "Nothing in the ISTew 
Testament forbids work, travel, trade, amusement, on 
the first day of the week. There is nothing which im- 
plies such a prohibition. The day, as one especially set 
apart, had no authority but that of the Catholic Church ; 
the laws requiring its observance were passed to enforce 
decrees of councils of the Catholic Church." " For ages 
all Christian nations looked to the Catholic Church, and, 
as we have seen, the various states enforce by law her 
ordinances as to worship and cessation of labor on Sun- 
day. Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the 
church, has no good reason for its Sunday theory, and 
ought, logically, to keep Saturday as the Sabbath, with 
the Jews and the Seventh Day Baptists. For their 
present practice, Protestants in general have no au- 
thority but that of a church which they disown." — The 
American Catholic Quarterly Review, Jan., 1883. 

James Blake, M. D., another Roman Cath- 
olic, in a debate with a Protestant, thus drove 
the latter to the wall : — 

"Christ never wrote, but God the Father did. He 
wrote the ten commandments on the tables of stone, and 
the only commandment he emphasized was that to keep 
the seventh clay. 'Remember to keep holy the seventh 
day ; ' and there is no command so often repeated 
throughout the Old Testament. If the Bible alone be 
the gentleman's rule of faith, he is bound by this com- 
mandment ; but does he observe it ? — ]N~o, he does not. 
Why, then, does he not observe it ? — Because the church 
thought fit to change it. Here the gentleman admits the 
authority ol the church to be superior to the handwrit- 
ing of God the Father ; and yet he will look you in the 
face, and declare that the Bible, without church au- 
thority, is his rule of faith." — Revieic and Herald, Feb. 
27, 1884. 

The following statements were made by a 
Catholic priest in the opera-house in Hart- 



176 CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES. 

ford, Kansas, Feb. 18, 1884, as reported in 
the Hartford Weekly Call of Feb. 22 :— 

''Christ gave to the church the power to make laws 
binding upon the conscience. Show me one sect that 
claims or possesses the power to do so save the Catholic 
Church. There is none, and yet all Christendom ac- 
knowledges the power of the church to do so, as I will 
prove to you. For example, the observance of Sunday. 
How can other denominations keep this day ? The 
Bible commands you to keep the Sabbath day. Sunday 
is not the Sabbath day ; no man dare assert that it is ; 
for the Bible says as plainly as words can make it, that 
the seventh day is the Sabbath, i. e. Saturday ; for we 
know Sunday to be the first day of the week. Besides, 
the Jews have been keeping the Sabbath day unto the 
present time. I am not a rich man, but I will give 
$1,000 to any man who will prove by the Bible alone 
that Sunday is the day we are bound to keep. No, it 
cannot be done ; it is impossible, The observance of 
Sunday is solely a law of the Catholic Church, and 
therefore is not binding upon others. The church 
changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and all the world bows 
down and worships upon that day in silent obedience to 
the mandates of the Catholic Church. Is this not a liv- 
ing miracle— that those who hate us so bitterly obey 
and acknowledge our power every week, and do not 
know it ?" 

These extracts from Catholic authorities 
might be much enlarged, but ought to be 
sufficient to show to any candid person the 
position taken by that church upon this 
point. It will be noticed that many of these 
come from catechisms and other doctrinal 
works which are officially issued by the Cath- 
olic Church itself. There can be no higher 
evidence of the position of a denomination 
than its doctrinal books put forth to teach its 
own people. Thus the papal church ac- 
knowledges point-blank that it has; dared to 



PROTESTANT AUTHORITIES. Ill 

change the law of God by " substituting Sun- 
day for Saturday." It puts forth this claim 
to all the Protestant world as the highest evi-> 
deuce of its authority. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

ADMISSIONS OF SOME PROTESTANTS CON- 
CERNING THE CHANGE OF 
THE SABBATH. 

We quote a few declarations relative to 
the change of the Sabbath, from those who 
are not Catholics, — men who are in no wise 
interested to say anything which would fa- 
vor the seventh day, but whom love of truth 
impels to speak as they do. 

N. Summerbell, a noted minister and au- 
thor in the Christian Church, and once presi- 
dent of Antioch (Ohio) College, says in his 
" History of the Christians," p. 418 :— 

"It [the Roman Catholic Church] has reversed the 
fourth commandment, doing away with the Sabbath of 
God's word, and instituting Sunday as a holy day." 

Alexander Campbell, in a lecture in Beth- 
any College, 1848, said : — 

"Was the first day set apart by public authority in 
the apostolic age ? — No. By whom was it set apart, 
and when ? — By Constantine, who lived about the be- 
ginning of the fourth century ." 

The Chicago Inter Ocean, answering the 
questions, Who changed the Sabbath day, 

Change of Sabbath. 12 



178 PROTESTANT AUTHORITIES. 

and when ? and, Is Sunday the first day of 
the week ? says : — 

"The change of the day of worship from the Sabbath, 
or last day of the week, to Sunday, the first day of the 
week, was done by the early Christians ; but the work 
was so gradual that it is almost impossible to determine 
when the one left off and the other began. It was not 
until after the Reformation that the change was con- 
firmed by any legal enactment. In the first ages after 
Christ it does not appear that the Christians abstained 
from their regular business upon that day, but they 
were accustomed to meet early in the day, and indulge 
in singing and some other religious services. It was not 
until the beginning of the third century that it became 
customary for Christians to abstain from their worldly 
business and occupation on that day." 

The Christian Union of June 11, 1879, an- 
swers the following questions concerning the 
change of the Sabbath : — 

"When, why, and by whom was the day of rest 
changed from the seventh to the first ? Has the Chris- 
tian Sabbath been observed since the time of the apos- 
tles ? — Reader. 

" Ans. — The Sabbath was changed from the seventh 
to the first day of the week, not by any positive au- 
thority, but by a gradual process. Christ was in the 
tomb during the seventh day. He rose upon the first. 
The Christians naturally observed the first day as a festal 
day in the early church, and as gradually the Gentile 
Christians came to be the vast majority of the church, 
they cared little or nothing about Jewish observances of 
any kind, abandoned the Jewish Sabbath along with 
temple services and the like, and thus, by a natural 
process, the first day of the week came to take its 
place. " 

We make these quotations, not for any proof 
that the seventh day is the Sabbath, but that 
the reader may see the positions which in- 
telligent persons are taking upon this subject. 



PROTESTANT AUTHORITIES. 179 

The high, puritanical claims concerning the 
change of the Sabbath by Christ and his 
apostles, basing it upon the fourth command- 
ment, and seeking to sustain it by the au- 
thority of the Bible, are being abandoned by 
many well-informed persons. They see it 
cannot be maintained, for to do so they are 
compelled to place it upon the Catholic 
ground of " custom and tradition," and the 
" authority of the church." It will be noticed 
that the extracts already given in this pamph- 
let virtually place it there. It was a " gradual 
process ; " it first began as a " festal day ;" it 
grew up by a " natural process ;" the " Gen- 
tile Christians " " abandoned the Jewish Sab- 
bath" when they "came to be the vast ma- 
jority of the church ; " and so Sunday at last 
came to be observed as the Sabbath day by 
the Catholic Church, from whence the whole 
Protestant world has received it. Well, this 
expresses as nearly the truth in the matter as 
we could reasonably expect from the eminent 
Protestant journal from which these ex- 
pressions are quoted. It well knows that 
Sunday has no divine authority for its sanc- 
tity ; if it had, it would certainly give it. Our 
readers who have traced this argument 
through, have found therein plenty of evi- 
dence that this "natural process" of the 
Christian Union was never secured until em- 
perors, popes, and councils had used their 
utmost authority to force \\\.z Sunday Sabbath 
upon the people ; that men were placed under 
a curse, and sometimes whipped, fined, and 
imprisoned, yes, and the Inquisition with its 
tortures was resorted to, and some were 



180 PROTESTANT AUTHORITIES. 

burned at the stake, before the " natural pro- 
cess " was fully consummated, and the Sunday 
of "pope and pagan" fully recognized as a 
sacred institution. 

We have now traced the process of chang- 
ing the Sabbath from the seventh to the first 
day of the week, from the apostolic age, when 
it was ever regarded as merely a secular day ; 
through the second century, when it began to 
be regarded, with Good Friday and other 
days, as a "voluntary festival" on which re- 
ligious meetings were held, and to which 
some little honor was paid by Christians, see- 
ing that it was generally regarded among 
their heathen neighbors as a weekly festival 
day in honor of the sun. In the third cen- 
tury, "custom and tradition," and the efforts 
of the bishop of Rome and his sympathizers, 
exalted Sunday still higher, and lowered the 
Sabbath in public estimation, by turning the 
latter into a fast and the former into a joyous 
festival. They had also by this time begun 
calling it by the honorable title of " Lord's 
Day," for which there is no warrant in Script- 
ure. The process went on still more rapidly 
during the fourth century, inasmuch as hea- 
thenism and Christianity at this time espoused 
each other in z^holy wedlock. Then Con- 
stantine, a heathen emperor, issued a heathen 
decree making the "venerable day of the 
sun " a rest day by imperial power, which 
Sylvester, bishop of Rome, cunningly sanc- 
tioned and enforced as a Christian institution, 
by the power of the Catholic Church ; and 
after a season the Catholic Council of Lao- 
dicea placed the observance of the true Sab- 
bath under a curse. 



PROTESTANT AUTHORITIES. 181 

With the perseverance of a sleuth-hound 
following his game, the Roman Church still 
pursued its work of suppressing the Sabbath 
during the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and 
following centuries, and elevating the Sunday 
in its place, by decrees of councils, curses of 
popes, crusades of extermination, tortures of 
the Inquisition, lying miracles, and rolls said 
to come from heaven, but really originating 
in the pope's palace. Wherever the papacy 
had the power, Sunday was established and 
the Sabbath of the Lord condemned. 

When the Reformation arose, its leaders, 
though men whom God honored by making 
them a blessing to the world, had through 
early training so lost the Sabbath from view, 
and had such a great work of reform on other 
points to carry through under the greatest 
difficulties, that many of them did not em- 
brace the Sabbath in their work of reform, 
though they attributed very little sacredness 
to Sunday, plainly stating that it stood on a 
level with such festivals as Easter, Christmas, 
Good Friday, and other church holidays. 

Later, the Presbyterians took the positions 
held by our Protestant churches generally at 
the present time, — of trying to place the 
Sunday under the protecting aegis of the 
fourth commandment, and of Christ and the 
apostles, — positions never taught during the 
previous sixteen hundred years. This late 
invention to cover a hoary fraud is now very 
popular with many. 

We have seen that various bodies of Chris- 
tians in different parts of the world not under 
the domineering influence of the papal see, 



182 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

still continued to keep the ancient Sabbath 
long after the Catholic Church had changed 
it ; but that church never neglected, in a single 
instance, to abolish its observance by perse- 
cution wherever it had the power to do so. 

We have examined many Catholic authors 
relative to this change, and they always agree 
that it was their church which changed the 
Sabbath. They present this fact as one of 
the greatest claims of this church to popular 
regard, and as the highest evidence of its 
ecclesiastical authority over all Protestant 
bodies. And intelligent Protestant authori- 
ties, with every reason for a bias in favor of 
Sunday, admit that its introduction was a 
gradual process, first as a festal day, then 
gradually coming into favor as a rest day, but 
with no higher authority than the Catholic 
Church. 

With a brief notice of several texts of Scrip- 
ture speaking prophetically of this very 
change, and some general observations, we 
will close this treatise. 



CHAPTER XX. 

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS. 

In the seventh chapter of Daniel we have 
one of the most remarkable prophecies of the 
Bible. It presents a chain of prophecy cov- 
ering the principal kingdoms of the world for 
nearly 3,000 years. Babylon, Media and 
Persia, Grecia, Rome, and the ten kingdoms 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 183 

into which the latter was divided, were pre- 
sented to the prophet under the symbols of 
four great monsters coming up out of the sea, 
— a lion with eagle's wings, a bear with three 
ribs in its mouth, a leopard with four heads, 
and a terrible nondescript beast with ten 
horns, great iron teeth, and a ferocity unpre- 
cedented. This last was presented under two 
phases, corresponding to the two diverse ap- 
pearances in which Rome presented itself to 
the world, — Rome ruled by the Caesars as a 
heathen power, and Rome ruled by the popes 
as a professedly Christian power. The latter 
form was to continue until the fires of the 
Judgment day should utterly destroy it. 

We have not space to enter into a lengthy 
exposition of this chapter. Suffice it to say 
that in our application of these symbols men- 
tioned, we agree with the best Protestant ex- 
positors ; and, indeed, we could not give an 
intelligent exposition of the chapter without 
taking their positions. 

Verse 23 reads : " Thus he [the angel] said, 
The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom 
upon earth." Daniel lived in the time of 
Babylon. The fourth great kingdom from 
that time could be no other than that of 
Rome. This power is first presented as a 
beast with ten horns, and subsequently with 
three of these " horns plucked up by the 
roots;" and a " little horn" with " eyes like 
the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great 
things." Then the solemn scene of the great 
Judgment day is presented, one like the 
" Ancient of days" — God the Father — sitting 
with myriads of heavenly angels in attend- 



1 84 <' EXHWA L O US KR VA TIOJS r S. 

ance. "The Judgment was set, and the 
books were opened." Then he beheld the 
body of this beast destroyed in the burning 
flames of the last day. In the explanation of 
these symbols given by the angel of God, he 
informs the prophet that these four beasts are 
"lour kings," or kingdoms, the fourth being 
Rome. The ten horns he also says are "ten 
kings," or kingdoms, which are evidently the 
kingdoms of the Western empire, into which 
Rome was divided between the years 851 and 
483 A. l). These the commentators inform us 
were the Huns, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, 
Vandals, Suevi, Burgundians, Heruli, Anglo- 
Saxons, and Lombards. 

Verses 24, 25: "And another shall rise 
after them, and he shall be diverse from the 
first, and he shall subdue three kings. And 
he shall speak great words against the Most 
High, and shall wear out the saints of the 
Most High, and think to change times and 
laws ; and they shall be given into his hand 
until a time and times and the dividing of 
time." There is one ruling power in Europe 
which wears three crowns in one — a triple 
crown. No traveler who has ever visited 
Rome will need to be told who that is. Every 
statue of a pope in that city (and they are 
many) wears such a crown. How plainly this 
ruler has distinguished himself as the power 
which plucked up three kingdoms ! just be- 
fore A. D. 538, the kingdoms of the Heruli, 
Vandals, and Ostrogoths, through the influ- 
ence of the Catholics, were uprooted, and in 
that year Justinian, emperor of Eastern Rome, 
ruling in Constantinople, proclaimed the pope 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 185 

head over all the churches. From this point 
the papacy rapidly increased in power and ar- 
rogance, till the mightiest kings of Europe 
trembled before this political and religious 
ruler. His power was unique. Nothing in 
history resembles it. Never ruling a large 
territory as his peculiar kingdom, he still pos- 
sessed an authority over the hearts and con- 
sciences of men which no mortal ever 
exercised before. He had " eyes like the 
eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great 
things," and a look " more stout than his fel- 
lows." Here is strikingly portrayed that far- 
seeing sagacity and discernment, and ability 
to grasp the motives of men, which has held 
so many millions in thralldom never before 
equaled. The language also indicates those 
arrogant pretensions and blasphemous claims 
never surpassed by any other kind of ruler. 
His look so stout was indeed clearly presented 
by a power of endurance through many cen- 
turies, which has never been equaled by any 
other. 

" He shall speak great words against the 
Most High." Here are pretensions seen 
nowhere else. He either calls himself, or is 
called by his votaries, " Lord God the Pope," 
" Christ's Vicar or Vicegerent on earth," " A 
very God on earth," " with power to open 
and shut heaven at his pleasure," " and ability 
to forgive sins," "even to grant indulgences." 

He "shall wear out the saints of the Most 
High." Behold the millions of martyrs whose 
blood has been shed in crusades, in massacres, 
in horrible dungeons, torn upon rocks, and 
burned at the stake. This power has caused 



186 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

the death of more people for conscience sake 
than all other political powers together which 
have ever existed on this earth. Surely this 
power fulfills the statements of the angel to 
the prophet. The best-informed Protestant 
historians have estimated his victims at up- 
wards of fifty million. Kind reader, think of 
it, — nearly as many people as live in these 
United States of America to-day, put to death 
for religious opinion ! 

He shall "think to change times and laws," 
or "the times and the law," as it is rendered 
by many other versions. The late revised 
version nas it "the law." It was not mere 
human laws to which the angel referred ; 
but the law of the Most High, the power 
against which he was warring. He shall 
speak "great words against" God, wear 
"out the saints" of God, and undertake 
( " think himself able," Dr. Clarke) to change 
the law of God. 

"They shall be given into his hand until a 
time and times and the dividing of time." 
This can only mean that he shall really seem 
to have accomplished his purpose of changing 
the law of God during this period. A time is 
one year (the ancient year of 360 days) ; times 
(plural), twice as much=720 ; a dividing of 
time, half as much= 180 ; making in all 1260 
prophetic, or symbolic, days, each day repre- 
senting a year. Eze. 4:6; Num. 14 : 34. 
He received his power from Justinian, A. D. 
538, and retained it until 1798, a period of 
just 1260 years, when the French Republic 
captured Rome, carried the pope into France, 
where he died in exile. The papacy then re- 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 187 

ceived a terrible blow, from which it has not 
yet recovered. 

This language plainly implies, even to a 
certainty, that the law of God would be 
changed by a blasphemous apostate power. 
Those who have read the foregoing chapters 
can hardly fail to see how wonderfully the 
Roman Catholic power has fulfilled these pre- 
dictions, by changing the Sabbath of the 
fourth commandment, and placing the Sun- 
day of "pope and pagan" in its stead. 

2 Thess. 2 : 3-8 : " Let no man deceive you 
by any means ; for that day [the coming of 
Christ] shall not come, except there come a 
falling away first, and that man of sin be re- 
vealed, the son of perdition ; who opposeth 
and exalteth himself above all that is called 
God, or that is worshiped ; so that he as God 
sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself 
that he is God. . . . For the mystery of ini- 
quity doth already work ; only he who now 
letteth [restraineth now, Revised Version} 
will let, until he be taken out of the w r ay. 
And then shall that Wicked [lawless one, Re- 
vised Version] be revealed, whom the Lord 
shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth, 
and shall destroy with the brightness of his 
coming." 

Here the same blasphemous power is pre- 
sented which is referred to in the scriptures 
already considered. He comes to the same 
end at the great burning day, when Christ 
comes. There (Dan. 7 : 25) he speaks great 
words against the Most High, and attempts 
to change His law ; here he opposes and ex- 
alts himself above all that is called God, and 



188 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

sits in the temple, i. e. the church, of God, 
claiming God-like power. He is the " lawless 
one," i. e., one who places himself above all 
law, — is amenable to no law. He can do as 
he pleases. 

We know of no other power on earth that 
claims such prerogatives as the papacy. As 
we have already seen, the Catholic catechisms 
and doctrinal books, and eminent authors of 
that faith, boldly put forth the claim that 
their church has changed the Sabbath. In- 
deed, they cite this act as the one above all 
others which demonstrates their authority, 
their right to be considered the one infallible 
church which can command the consciences 
of men. The fact that the whole religious 
world follows the practice of the church, 
with really no other authority for so doing 
than that of the church, is boldly presented as 
proof of its power to change the law of God. 

Thus we see fulfilled the plain predictions 
of the Scriptures, that such a power should 
arise, and should think itself able to change 
the law of God. And after centuries of effort 
put forth to accomplish this" very object, the 
power in question stands forth before the 
world, and boldly claims to have done it. He 
" exalts himself" in this very way above God 
himself. Indeed, it seems he could exalt him- 
self above God in no other way. He could 
not ascend into the heavens, and seize the 
throne of the Highest. He could not grasp 
the dominion of the universe, command the 
forces of nature, or keep the vast machinery 
of creation in orderly motion. But by really 
succeeding in making millions of professed 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 189 

Christians, believers in the inspiration of the 
Bible, accept the memorial of sun-worship in 
place of the Sabbath of the Lord God, thus 
seeming to change the law of the Most High, 
he has indeed " exalted himself" above God, 
as the apostle declared he would. 

There is one question more which we can 
but briefly notice : Will God permit this 
power, which was to " think to change" the 
law of God, to carry through this deception to 
the very last ? or will he bring to light this 
great iniquity before time closes, so that the 
truly honest in heart shall understand this 
work of apostasy before Christ comes ? But 
one answer can reasonably be given to this 
question : It would be inconsistent and most 
unreasonable to suppose that God would per- 
mit such indignities to be placed upon his 
law, and never bring to light this work of the 
man of sin. 

There are certain scriptures which plainly 
indicate that the last and closing work of 
reformation at the very close of the Christian 
dispensation, will have reference to this work 
of apostasy, and the restoration of the law, 
as God gave it, to its proper position in the 
affections and service of the true people of 
God. 

The scripture we have already quoted 
(Dan. 7 : 25) strongly intimates this. Speak- 
ing of the power which should think to 
change the law and should oppress God's 
people, it states that they should " be given 
into his hand until a time and times and the 
dividing of time." This period, embracing 
1260 years, commencing in A. D. 538 and 



190 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

closing in 1798, brings us to the "time of the 
end." The word "until" marks the limit or 
close of the period during which this power 
should have supremacy, and the time that 
the law and people should be given into his 
hands. Leading Protestant commentators 
agree that the power predicted here is the 
papacy, and Catholic authorities themselves 
claim their church did make a change in the 
Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of 
the week. So we conclude that when the 
1260 years allotted to that power in which 
to hold under his control God's law and 
people, had closed, a change would cer- 
tainly come. Such a change did come, so 
far as the power to persecute is concerned. 
All know the Catholic Church has no longer 
power to persecute as before. Shall we not, 
then, for the same reason, look for a great 
movement to restore God's law to its for- 
mer position ? So we must conclude from 
this language. 

In Revelation 12 we find a most striking 
prophecy of the church of Christ, under the 
symbol of a woman clothed with the light of 
the sun, and having on her head a crown of 
twelve stars, who brought forth a man-child 
" who was to rule all nations with a rod of 
iron," etc. The woman fled into the wilder- 
ness from the face of a great red dragon with 
seven heads and ten horns, where she was 
preserved for a period of 1260 prophetic days 
(or years) from the face of the serpent. The 
woman symbolizes the true church, which 
commentators generally admit. The man-child 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 191 

is our Saviour, who was " caught up unto 
God, and to his throne." The great red 
dragon symbolizes the Roman power, which 
stood before the woman " to devour her 
child as soon as it was born," in the person of 
Herod, a Roman governor, who tried to put 
Jesus to death when he killed all the male 
children in Bethlehem that were two years 
old or under. 

The reader will notice with peculiar inter- 
est the fact that the woman, or true church, 
was hidden away in the wilderness from this 
persecuting power precisely the same length 
of time that the "little horn" of Daniel 7 was 
to persecute the church of God and seem to 
change his law. That period commenced 
A. D. 538, when the last of the three king- 
doms was plucked up by the papacy. About 
the same time the adherents of the true 
church, as we have seen, no longer remained 
in union with the Roman Catholic Church ; 
and they were ever after known as heretics. 
They hid away in retired places, while the 
apostate power " exalted himself above all 
that is called God or that is worshiped," 
in the very " temple," or church, of God 
himself. Thus Inspiration represents this 
wonderful period of human history. 

" And the dragon was wroth with the 
woman, and went to make war with the rem- 
nant of her seed, which keep the command- 
ments of God, and have the testimony of Je- 
sus Christ." Verse 17. The remnant of the 
woman's seed can only be the very last por- 
tion of the true church ; for we all know the 
remnant is what remains at the very last, as a 



192 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

small portion of a web of cloth after the main 
part is gone, or a few survivors of an army- 
after the greater portion are dead. We are 
distinctly informed, then, by the words of In- 
spiration, that the very last portion of the 
church are to have a peculiar experience, and 
are to be marked by certain striking charac- 
teristics, which will distinguish them from 
all others. The dragon, " that old serpent, 
called the Devil, and Satan," will be " wroth" 
with them. This can only imply that a vin- 
dictive spirit of hatred and persecution will 
be kindled against them. This must come 
because of certain great truths and reforms, 
which Satan hates, that are to be accepted 
and promulgated by the "remnant" church. 
As he has always done in the past, he will 
oppress and harass the defenders of these 
truths in the last great conflict. What dis- 
tinguishes this " remnant " church ? — They 
"keep the commandments of God, and have 
the testimony of Jesus Christ." They are 
not Jews, but* Christians. What is it to 
" keep the commandments of God " ? Is it to 
keep merely a part of them? — "Whosoever 
shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in 
one point, he is guilty of all. For he that 
said [or, that law which said, margin], Do 
not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. 
Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou 
kill, thou art become a transgressor of the 
law." James 2 : 10, 11. 

The law of God, embraced in the ten com- 
mandments, contains all the principles of 
moral duty. To keep that law, we must obey 
every part of it. In suspending our weight 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 193 

upon a chain, we shall as surely fall if one 
link breaks as if all broke. It is not enough 
that we keep part of the precepts of God's 
law ; we must obey all. The same God that 
spoke part, spoke all. All stand upon the 
same authority. The same reasoning which 
James applies to the two commandments, 
" Thou shalt not commit adultery " and " Thou 
shalt not kill," applies to the fourth command 
as well : " Remember .the Sabbath day to 
keep it holy. . . . The seventh day is the 
Sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt 
not do any work," etc. Keeping Sunday 
never fulfilled that commandment ; for as 
plain as the sun shining at noonday is the 
fact that Sunday is not the day which God, 
in this the only Sabbath law, commands 
men to observe. Millions have transgressed 
the fourth commandment honestly, believing 
they were keeping it. That God mercifully 
accepted them while they were living up to 
all the light they had, we will not dispute. So 
great has been the influence of the " mystery 
of iniquity" upon the minds of men, that the 
greater part of the world's inhabitants have 
been deceived. The Scripture declares that 
"all the world wondered after the beast 
[papacy]," and that " all that dwell upon the 
earth shall worship him." Rev. 13 : 3, 8. 

This work which the great apostasy has 
wrought has been a most extensive one ; but 
we truly believe that myriads have honestly 
thought they were doing God service in keep- 
ing Sunday. But that fact does not change 
the wording or intent of the fourth command- 
ment, nor make God authorize men to keep 

Change of Sabbath. 13 



194 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

the first day of the week, when he commands 
them to keep the seventh. We may all feel a 
deep sense of gratitude that we have a God so 
merciful that he makes allowance for men's 
ignorance of his requirements when they live 
up to all the light he gives them. He said to 
the Jews: " This is the condemnation, that 
light is come into the world, and men loved 
darkness rather than light, because their 
deeds were evil." John 3 : 19. " If ye were 
blind, ye should have no sin ; but now ye say, 
We see ; therefore your sin remaineth." John 
9 : 41. When men honestly seek to live up to 
all the light they have, and earnestly desire 
all the light God has for them, they place 
themselves where God can save them. When 
men see their duty and will not do it, then 
their sins stand against them, and they are 
under condemnation. So we hope for the 
salvation of multitudes of those who lived in 
ages of darkness, those whose lives were truly 
in accordance with all the light they enjoyed. 
But we see a positive statement of Inspira- 
tion that the " remnant" of the true church 
will "keep the commandments of God!' This 
cannot mean that they will keep merely a 
part of the commandments, or keep them as 
changed by the papacy ; but that they will 
keep them as God originally gave them. This 
is a distinguishing feature of the last genera- 
tion of Christians living on the earth. This 
will stir the ire of Satan, and they will have 
misrepresentations and persecutions to meet, 
and a bitter spirit of opposition to encounter. 
So the Scripture teaches. We also have a 
plain reference to this same great movement 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 195 

in Revelation 14 : 6-16. We cannot give a 
full exposition of this most important scrip- 
ture ; but those who desire to investigate this 
and other kindred texts more fully, will find 
them further expounded in works published 
by the Review and Herald, Battle Creek, 
Mich., or the Pacific Press, Oakland, Cal., 
entitled, " The Three Angels' Messages of 
Rev. 14," or " The Position and Work of the 
True People of God." 

We will express but a few thoughts here 
concerning this scripture. It presents to our 
view the proclamation of three symbolic mes- 
sengers, doubtless symbols of movements of 
those whom God has specially raised up to 
give important truths in the last days, to pre- 
pare a people for Christ's coming. These 
must be last-day messages. They are to be 
most extensively proclaimed to " every na- 
tion, and kindred, and tongue, and people." 

The first message brings us to the "hour 
of His judgment," which must denote the 
preliminary work of judgment which takes 
places a little before Christ comes. This first 
proclamation evidently is designed to call 
special attention to the fact that Christ is 
soon to come. Such a message has been in 
process of proclamation for forty years in the 
past, in the great advent movement especially 
prominent from 1840-44. It is still being 
given in every part of the earth. 

The second message of warning proclaims 
the fall of Babylon. There is no great literal 
city of that name upon the earth. The term 
must therefore be used as a symbol. The 
word " Babylon" signifies confusion or mixture, 



196 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

— a religious condition where truth and error 
are mixed together in systems of doctrines 
partly true and partly false. This must in- 
clude a large portion of Christendom. The 
language indicates a state of moral declension 
in piety and devotion, which will largely pre- 
vail throughout the world in the last days ; a 
state of conformity to a worldly standard ; a 
lack of that earnestness among many who 
have professed the religion of Christ, in com- 
parison to what has been seen in ages past. 
We think no thoughtful, candid person can 
deny that we have reached just such a time. 

The third message of Revelation 14 reads 
as follows: "And the third angel followed 
them, saying with a loud voice, If any man 
worship the beast and his image, and receive 
his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the 
same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of 
God, which is poured out without mixture 
into the cup of his indignation ; and he shall 
be tormented with fire and brimstone in the 
presence of the holy angels, and in the pres- 
ence of the Lamb ; and the smoke of their 
torment ascendeth up forever and ever ; and 
they have no rest day nor night, who worship 
the beast and his image, and whosoever re- 
ceiveth the mark of his name. Here is the 
patience of the saints ; here are they that 
keep the commandments of God, and the faith 
of Jesus? 

Whatever may be the reader's views of the 
meaning of this scripture, if he has any rev- 
erence for the word of God he must believe 
that here is brought to view a most solemn 
and important work. No other threatening 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 197 

in all the Bible is so fearful as this. Some 
great issue is hereto be brought to bear upon 
mankind. We cannot question the fact that 
this is a last-day message, — the very last to 
be given to the world previous to the time 
when one "like unto the Son of man" is 
beheld coming on a white cloud to reap 
the harvest of the earth. Rev. 14 : 14-16. 
"The harvest is the end of the world." Matt. 
13 :39. Christ ascended on high from Olivet, 
and a cloud received him from the sight of 
his disciples. The shining ones who stood 
by said, " This same Jesus, which is taken 
up from you into heaven, shall so come in 
like manner as ye have seen him go into 
heaven." Acts 1:10, 11. We see the pre- 
diction fulfilled in the scripture we are no- 
ticing, and we therefore conclude that this 
third message is a special proclamation of 
some important truth which is to test the 
world just before the Saviour comes the sec- 
ond time. 

What is the nature of the work indicated 
in this warning message ? — First, it is a threat- 
ening against those who worship a power 
called the "beast;" secondly, it brings to 
view a people who "keep the commandments 
of God, and the faith of Jesus." What is this 
beast power, against which the terrible 
threatening is pronounced ? It is brought to 
view in the preceding chapter, Rev. 13. The 
prophet beheld a beast having seven heads 
and ten horns, rise out of the sea. His body 
was like that of a leopard, his feet like those 
of a bear, and his mouth like that of a lion, 
and "the dragon gave him his power, and his 



198 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS, 

seat, and great authority." He beheld one 
of his heads wounded to death, but that 
wound was finally healed. " All the world 
wondered after the beast," and " there was 
given unto him a mouth speaking great things 
and blasphemies ; and power was given unto 
him to continue forty and two months." He 
had power to make war with the saints and 
overcome them, and " power was given him 
over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations." 
This beast was finally led into captivity. 

The explanation of this symbol is very sim- 
ple. As the great red dragon of the twelfth 
chapter, with seven heads and ten horns, 
symbolizes the Roman power in its pagan 
form, this symbol of a beast made up of parts 
of a lion, a bear, and a leopard, can only refer 
to that power which contained within itself 
the three kingdoms symbolized by these 
beasts, viz., Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Grecia. 
Dan. 7. Rome conquered the territory and 
subjects of these divisions, and absorbed 
them, so to speak, into itself. Hence its 
presentation in the symbol as a composite 
power. Its seven heads represented the 
seven different forms of government in which 
Rome presented itself to the world ; viz., 
kingly, consular, triumvirate, decemvirate, 
dictatorial, imperial, and papal. The ten 
horns were the ten kingdoms of the Western 
empire, into which Rome was divided. It 
held supremacy, as we have seen, 1260 pro- 
phetic days, or years, u e. 42 months, reckoning 
each month, as is usual, at thirty days. Rome 
ruled by the popes received its power, seat 
(the city of Rome), and great authority from 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 199 

the preceding symbolical form, the dragon, 
when Justinian, the imperial ruler located 
in Constantinople, proclaimed the pope head 
over all the churches, A. D. 538. 

This beast received a " deadly wound " in 
1798, just 42 months or 1260 days (prophetic) 
afterward, when the soldiers of the French 
Republic removed the head, the pope, and 
carried him into exile, where he died. His 
government was then destroyed by a repub- 
lic's being created in its stead. This " deadly 
wound was healed " when the pope was re- 
stored by the allies in 1814. 

The pope has spoken blasphemous words 
against God in the titles he ascribes to him- 
self; he has "overcome " many millions of the 
saints of God in crusades, by the Inquisition, 
the stake, the dungeon, and in every way 
possible. There is no possible way of escap- 
ing the conclusion that the leopard beast of 
Revelation 13 and the little horn of Daniel 7 
are identical. Both predictions are wonder- 
fully fulfilled in the papal power. 

Now we see the force of the fearful threat- 
ening of the third angel of Revelation 14. 
The time has at last come for God to reckon 
with this proud, haughty, blasphemous, per- 
secuting, cruel power, which has dared to 
change his law, to claim divine prerogatives, 
and to persecute his saints. God did not 
choose to do this in the Dark Ages, when 
not one in a hundred could read or write, 
when one copy of the Bible would cost hun- 
dreds of dollars, and when it was almost im- 
possible to find any which the common peo- 
ple could read, very few indeed being written 



200 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

in the language then spoken ; but all were 
hidden in the dead Hebrew, Greek, or Latin 
tongues. But he has waited till the great re- 
searches and discoveries of later times have 
opened up all the world to mankind ; till the 
earth is one vast network of railroads, and 
every river, yes, and every ocean, is con- 
stantly traversed by the sail or steam-ship ; till 
men talk to each other by means of the tele- 
graph and telephone from country to country 
and from town to town ; till the busy print- 
ing-presses have scattered the Bible like 
leaves of autumn, in two hundred and fifty 
languages, to every people, race, and tongue ; 
and till nearly every nation can read and 
write. 

Yes, God reserves this great crisis till all 
can know his word, if they desire to do so. As 
it was an age of great light when Christ first 
came, the Augustan age of poets, philoso- 
phers, and statesmen, so God has designed 
that the last great conflict of truth and error 
shall come in a special age of light and 
knowledge. In the time of the end, knowl- 
edge shall be increased. Dan. 12 : 4. God is 
merciful. He will give all who desire to do 
so a chance to know his will. Then he sends 
forth this fearful threatening : " If any man 
worship the beast, ... he shall drink of the 
wine of the wrath of God." With an open 
Bible in every man's hand, God can consist- 
ently threaten those who violate his holy law, 
and follow longer that apostate power which 
thinks to change it. 

We may now ask, What is the position of 
God's true people ? " Here are they" says 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 201 

the third angel, " that keep the commandments 
of God y and the faith of Jesus." They keep 
them as God gave them, and not as an apos- 
tate church changed them. And for that 
work that church is threatened with wrath 
without mercy. God's people will be distin- 
guished by obedience to him in this crisis, 
and will not follow another power. It would 
be absurd to suppose that when Christ comes 
he will find his people, who are to be trans- 
lated alive to heaven, following the work of 
this wicked power, in disobedience to God's 
law. We cannot, therefore, question the fact 
that the last great reform, the final conflict 
between truth and error, will be over the 
law of Jehovah. This issue is reserved as the 
last great test. 

Would any say the issue is an insignificant 
one ? They cannot truthfully do so. God 
has ever exalted his law as very sacred. He 
spoke and wrote it himself. Christ magni- 
fied it and made it " honorable." He says, 
" Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one 
tittle shall in nowise pass from the law." In 
the very last chapter of the Bible, Christ, the 
Alpha and Omega, declares, " Blessed are 
they that do his [the Father's] command- 
ments, that they may have right to the tree of 
life, and may enter in through the gates into 
the city." Rev. 22 : 14. The wise man says, 
" Let us hear the conclusion of the whole 
matter : Fear God, and keep his command- 
ments ; for this is the whole duty of man." 
Eccl. 12 : 13. He says again, "He that turn- 
eth away his ear from hearing the law, even 
his prayer shall be abomination." Prov. 28 : 9. 



202 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

This law is not abolished by the gospel, 
for Paul says, some thirty years after the 
cross of Christ, " Do we then make void the 
law through faith ? God forbid ; yea, we es- 
tablish the law." Rom. 3 : 31. This law is of 
universal application. "Now we know that 
what things soever the law saith, it saith to 
them who are under the law ; that every 
mouth may be stopped, and all the world 
may become guilty before God." Rom. 3 : 19. 
So we might proceed,, and fill page after 
page with just such quotations, showing 
the immutability of God's " perfect," " holy, 
just, and good," " spiritual " law. Such are the 
expressions everywhere to be found in the 
blessed Bible concerning this law which 
the Deity promulgated in thunder tones from 
Sinai's summit, with a voice that shook the 
earth. 

Oh, no ! this great conflict in the last days 
concerning this law which demands the obe- 
dience of every man, the transgression of 
which is sin, is no small affair. The very 
foundations of morality and true reverence 
for God are involved in the conflict. This 
law will be the main point of the strug- 
gle. God's holy Sabbath, given to man at 
the creation of the world, kept for thousands 
of years by his people till changed by the 
man of sin, will have its proper position in 
the affections of God's people, who will be 
translated at the coming of Christ. 

The light is shining on this subject already 
most extensively. The reform connected 
with the Third Angel's Message in the resto- 
ration of the Bible Sabbath is extending to 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 203 

all parts of the earth. It is being published 
already in the leading languages of the 
world, Printing-offices for its promulgation 
are to be found in the United States, Eng- 
land, Switzerland, Norway, and Australia. 
Observers of the true Sabbath are more or 
less numerous in the United States, Great 
Britain, France, Switzerland, Germany, 
Italy, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, 
Holland, and Roumania, and in some por- 
tions of Africa, South America, the Sandwich 
Islands, Australia, and New Zealand. Its 
adherents are being rapidly increased by the 
extensive circulation of publications, and by 
the active labors of ministers, missionary 
workers, colporters, and canvassers in every 
part of the globe. There has been a won- 
derful growth of interest in the Sabbath 
question in all parts of the world very re- 
cently. It is becoming a live question; it 
must and will be heard. We live in an age 
of investigation, and there is no theological 
question being agitated to-day more plain or 
more important than this. Let the good 
work go on till hoary error is exposed in all 
its deformity, and precious, blessed truth 
shines out clearly to all mankind. 



**gfc*^* 



CHAPTER XXL 

SUMMARY OF FACTS ABOUT THE SEVENTH 
DAY OF THE WEEK. 

With this chapter and the one following 
we present a brief summary of facts con- 
cerning the Sabbath and Sunday, to remind 
the reader of the points presented in this 
treatise : — 

1. The great God closed his six days of 
labor in creating the world, by resting on the 
seventh day of the first week of time, and 
thus laid the foundation of the Sabbatic in- 
stitution. 

2. The seventh day of the week thus be- 
came God's rest day, i. e. Sabbath day, Sab- 
bath meaning rest. One day of the week is 
therefore God's rest day, because he rested 
upon it, and no other can become such until 
his act of resting is repeated upon some other 
day. This no one claims has ever occurred. 

3. There are therefore in each week, as the 
prophet says (Eze. 46 : 1), " six working days," 
and one rest or " Sabbath day," and that is 
the seventh day of the week. 

4. That original " rest day " of Jehovah, 
God himself blessed, because that in it he had 
rested. Gen. 2 : 3. Thus it became a better 
day than the other days ; for what God 
blesses is made better by that act. There- 
fore all days are not alike. 

5. God also, at the very time when he 
blessed the seventh day, " sanctified it," L e., 
" appointed it to a holy or sacred use," for 
human beings to use as a Sabbath. Gen. 

[204] 



S TTMMAR T— THE SEVENTH DA F. 205 

2 : 3. In no other way could this have been 
done except by informing Adam and Eve, 
the only living persons, of their duty thus to 
observe it. Thus the Sabbath was made for 
man at the beginning of human history, at 
the creation of the world. 

6. The only origin of the weekly cycle is 
the appointment of the Sabbath. And as 
this cycle has been known to all ages, the 
existence of the Sabbath in the earliest times 
is demonstrated. Gen. 7 : 4 ; 8 : 10, 12 ; 29 : 27. 

7. The seventh-day Sabbath is not Jewish, 
because it originated more than two thousand 
years before there was a Jew. The word Jew 
is derived from the name Judah, one of the 
sons of Jacob. 

8. We have given the clearest evidences 
from heathen historians of the existence and 
knowledge of the Sabbath among other an- 
cient nations not descended from Abraham ; 
and tablets dug up in ancient cities, and a 
variety of other authorities, clearly prove 
that it was not derived from the Jewish 
people. 

9. As the Sabbath originated thousands of 
years before there was a Jew, and was com- 
mitted to the ancestors of a multitude of 
other nations besides the one Jewish nation, 
even before they received it ; therefore it 
would be more fitting to call it the Gentile 
Sabbath than the Jewish. 

10. Inasmuch as God's rest implies the 
completion of his work of creation, and since 
he appeals to the fact that he created all 
things in six days and rested the seventh 
as the great reason why he commands all 



206 SUMMABY—THE SEVENTH DAT. 

men to observe the Sabbath, therefore we 
must conclude that the seventh-day Sab- 
bath is God's great memorial of his work 
as creator. 

11. All Gentiles owe their existence to 
God's act of creating, as much as do the 
Jews ; hence, primarily, they are just as 
much under obligation to observe the me- 
morial of it as the Jews are. 

12. The reason why God placed this great 
memorial in the hands of Abraham's seed for 
a period of time, is the same precisely that 
led him to place his law in their keeping, to 
give himself to them as the God of Israel, to 
allow his word to be written by them, and 
then brought the Saviour himself through 
that nation, viz., because all the world except 
the nation of the Jews had rebelled against 
him and gone into idolatry. None of these 
particulars are Jewish in character ; all the 
world is interested in them. 

13. As positive proof that the Sabbath did 
not owe its existence to the proclamation of 
the law from Sinai, but that God had a law 
before of which the Sabbath was a part, we 
cite the account in Exodus 16, where " he 
proved them whether they would walk in 
his law or no," more than thirty days be- 
fore he spoke his law to the people. Ex. 
16 : 4, 22-24. 

14. The miraculous falling of the manna on 
the "six working days," with a double por- 
tion on the sixth day of the week, while none 
fell on the seventh, and its preservation on 
the Sabbath, while it became corrupt if left 
over on other days, continued for forty years, 



SUMMARY— THE SEVENTH DAT. 207 

thus attesting by more than six thousand 
miracles in the aggregate which day God 
regarded as the rest day of his people. It 
forever annihilates the seventh-part-of-time 
theory, and demonstrates beyond the perad- 
venture of a doubt that God has one particular 
day of the seven which he desires his people 
to keep holy. 

15. In the most solemn, impressive manner, 
God proclaimed his law on Mount Sinai, wrote 
it with his own finger on the imperishable 
tablets of stone ; and in the very midst of 
the nine moral precepts, which all admit are 
immutable and of universal obligation, he 
placed the seventh-day Sabbath, and com- 
manded men to remember it to keep it lioly, 
thus showing it was like the other command- 
ments in character and moral obligation, or 
it would have been placed with the cere- 
monial precepts. 

16. In the fourth commandment no rea- 
sonable ground is given from which to claim 
that it is merely one day in seven and no day 
in particular which God requires to be kept 
holy ; but it is the day of God's rest which he 
commands us to observe. This is as definite 
as one's birthday or Independence day, as 
God rested only on the seventh day of the 
weekly cycle. Therefore it is utterly impos- 
sible to cover the first day of the week with 
the mantle of that command which requires 
men to observe the seventh day. 

17. All the reasons given in the command- 
ment for the observance of the Sabbath are 
such as apply to the Gentiles just as much as 
to the Jews ; one needs rest as much as the 



208 SUMMARY— THE SEVENTH DAT, 

other ; both need to keep in mind the true 
God ; both need a day of worship ; both owe 
their existence to creation ; therefore both 
should keep its memorial. 

18. As the Sabbath is a memorial of the 
creation, the observance of it by any person 
is a " sign " that such an one is a worshiper 
of the true God, the Creator. It ever dis- 
tinguishes them from idolaters. Had men al- 
ways observed it, it would have preserved 
the race from idolatry. Hence the Sabbath 
is a "sign," or token, between God and his 
people. Ex. 31 : 13-17 ; Eze. 20 :20. 

19. The fact that God promised the Jews 
that their city should stand forever if they 
would always observe the Sabbath (Jer. 17 : 
24, 25), and then, because they did not keep 
it, he destroyed their city, and sent them into 
captivity (Neh. 13 : 18 ; Eze. 20 : 13), strongly 
attests his high regard for it. 

20. By the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, 
in a prophecy referring wholly to the Chris- 
tian dispensation, God pronounced a great 
blessing upon all the Gentiles who should 
keep the Lord's Sabbath holy (Isa. 56 : 6), thus 
clearly proving that it was not a Jewish insti- 
tution, confined to that nation alone. 

21. Our Saviour, when he came, kept the 
Sabbath, with the rest of his Father's com- 
mandments. John 15:10. It was his "cus- 
tom" to use it as a day of religious meetings 
in which to preach the gospel to the people. 
Luke 4 : 16. He stripped off the burdensome 
traditions the Jews had placed around it, and 
restored it to its proper position as a day of 
rest and refreshment, a blessing to mankind ; 



SUMMARY— THE SEVENTH DAY. 209 

and he declared himself to be its Lord, its 
protector (Mark 2 :28), and that it was made 
for the race of man. 

22. Christ had the right to call himself the 
special guardian of the Sabbath, inasmuch as 
he was the one who created the world (John 
1:3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2), and so was a 
partner in the rest upon the first seventh day 
in the first week of time, and thus helped to 
make the Sabbath. Hence we see why the 
seventh-day Sabbath is truly the Lord Jesus 
Christ's day, in a sense that no other day 
can be. 

23. Christ also taught the present, future, 
and eternal obligation of all the command- 
ments of the moral law, of which the Sabbath 
command is a part, solemnly declaring that 
not a letter or point of a letter should pass 
from this lav/ till heaven and earth pass away, 
and that whosoever should break one of the 
least of these commandments should forfeit 
heaven by so doing, thus enforcing the au- 
thority of the Sabbath in the most forcible 
manner possible. Matt. 5 : 17-19. 

24. Our Saviour not only imitated his Fa- 
ther in resting himself on the Sabbath dur- 
ing his earthly life, but showed his solicitude 
that his disciples should observe it after his 
death, even in times of great national calam- 
ities, by teaching them to pray continually 
for forty years that the time of their flight 
from Jerusalem, just before its destruction, 
should not occur on the Sabbath day. Matt. 
21 : 20. 

25. After our Saviour's death, the disci- 
ples, faithful to his example and instructions, 

Change of Saebath. 14 



210 SUMMARY— THE SEVENTH DAT. 

continued to treat the Sabbath as sacred time. 
The holy women would not even anoint his 
body on that day, but " rested upon the Sab- 
bath day according to the commandment" 
(Luke 23 : 56), and came upon the first day of 
the week to do that which they would not do 
upon the seventh, 

26. For some thirty years after Christ's 
death we have an inspired history of the 
apostolic church, in which we learn of the ex- 
ceeding bitterness and hatred of the Jews 
against the disciples, taking every possible 
occasion to persecute and destroy them. But 
in not a single instance is there the slightest 
hint that they ever found them breaking the 
Sabbath. This negative argument affords 
the strongest proof that the disciples con- 
tinued to observe that day as they always 
had before. 

27. But in addition to this we have the 
positive statement of scripture that it was 
Paul's " manner" to use the day for religious 
worship. Acts 17 : 2. This is evident when 
we consider that Inspiration gives an account 
of some eighty-four different Sabbaths when 
these religious services were held. Acts 16 : 
13; 17:2; 18:4, 11; 13:14, 44. The last 
one of these was a distinctively Gentile meet- 
ing, held by the special invitation of the Gen- 
tiles of Antioch, — a service which nearly the 
whole population of the city attended. 

28. Not only was it the practice of the 
apostolic church to observe the seventh-day 
Sabbath, and hold their religious services on 
that day, but the Holy Spirit has settled the 
question forever as to which day of the week 



S UMMAR Y— THE SEVENTH DAT. 211 

in the Christian dispensation is entitled to the 
sacred name of " the Sabbath day" by calling 
that day the Sabbath after Christ's resurrec- 
tion which had been such for four thousand 
years before, and never calling any other day 
by that title. 

29. Inasmuch as all the inspired writers of 
the New Testament, from St. Matthew, writing 
during the first decade after the resurrection, 
to St. John, who penned his Gospel at the 
very close of the first century of the Christian 
era, ever call the seventh day the Sabbath 
when they have occasion to speak of it, and 
never give the first day of the week that title, 
it clearly demonstrates that they had never 
learned of any change during that time, or 
made any in their practice ; for they surely 
would have called that day the Sabbath which 
they kept as such. 

30. And in the case of St. Paul, the great 
apostle to the Gentiles, we have his explicit 
statement that he had " committed nothing 
against the people, or customs of the fathers." 
Acts 28 : 17. Hence he must have kept the 
ancient Sabbath ; for all agree that this was 
one of their customs ; and as it is evident that 
he taught what he practiced himself, inas- 
much as he commanded the disciples to follow 
him as he followed Christ, both he and Christ 
must have kept that day. Therefore Paul 
taught the Gentiles to observe the Sabbath. 
Thus the churches in Thessalonica, Gentile 
churches, followed the example of theSabbath- 
keeping churches of Judea. 1 Thess. 2:14. 

31. St. John, the last writer in the Bible, 
just at the close of the first century of the 



212 S UMMAR Y—THE SEVENTH DA Y. 

Christian dispensation, still recognized the 
existence of that Sabbath day of which Christ 
said he was " Lord " (Rev. 1 : 10), thus demon- 
strating that all days are not alike, but that 
the Lord still has a day which he calls his 
own, just as much as he had four thousand 
years before that time. 

32. We have clearly proven from a variety 
of first-day historians that this same seventh- 
day Sabbath w r as still observed by the mass 
of Gentile Christians, more or less sacredly, 
for centuries after the death of Christ, until 
by the machinations of the Roman Catholic 
Church it was treated with indignity and con- 
tempt. Finally, all who observed it were 
placed under a curse by the Catholic Council 
of Laodicea, A. D. 364. 

33. We have also learned from history that 
the true Sabbath continued to be observed by 
Christians whom the Catholic Church could 
not control. It denounced them as heretics, 
persecuted and killed even those who were 
remote from its influence during all the dark 
ages of papal supremacy. 

34. We have also shown that in the last 
great reform entered upon by God's people 
just before Christ comes, God's ancient Sab- 
bathy trampled upon for ages by the great 
apostasy which has thought to " change " 
God's law, and which has exalted itself " above 
all that is called God " in the very church or 
"temple of God," shall once more stand forth 
in its pristine glory, and be observed by the 
people of God as the great memorial of his 
creative zvork. 

35. Thus we see that the people whom 



SUMMARY— THE FIRST DAY. 213 

Christ will translate at his coming, to reign 
with him in glory, will agree in practice con- 
cerning the seventh-day Sabbath with God 
the Father, Christ the Son, all the faithful 
patriarchs and prophets of ancient times, the 
apostles of the Lord Jesus, the early apostolic 
church, and all others who take the Bible for 
their authority and obey the law of God. 

36. And finally, the prophet Isaiah, in a 
glorious view of the new heavens and earth, 
after all rebellion, sin, and death shall be for- 
ever abolished, beholds all the children of 
God observing the original, ancient Sabbath 
of the great Jehovah, meeting together every 
time of its recurrence to worship him for 
whom that day is the great memorial. Isa. 
66 : 22, 23. How, then, can men believe that 
the day has lost its sacredness and impor- 
tance ? 



CHAPTER XXII. 

SUMMARY OF FACTS ABOUT THE FIRST DAY 
OF THE WEEK. 

1. GOD commenced his work of creating 
the world by working on the first day of the 
first week of time, while he rested on the 
seventh day of that week ; thus distinguishing 
the first day as a ''working day," while he 
made the seventh a rest day. Can it be 
wicked to follow the example of the God of 
heaven, and work on Sunday ? 

2. Not an instance can be found in the 
Bible where Sunday was ever observed as a 



214 SUMMARY— THE FIRST DAY. 

rest day, or a hint given that its character as 
a " working day" was ever changed to that 
of a rest day. Indeed, God in the fourth 
commandment (Ex. 20 : 8-11) permits or com- 
mands men to work upon it ; and the prophet 
Ezekiel calls it one of the " working days." 
Eze. 46 : 1. Can it be a sin to treat it as God 
expressly permits in his own law ? 

3. Not a command in all the Bible can be 
found to observe Sunday as a rest day or a 
day for religious worship, — no record of its 
ever being blessed or set apart for any sacred 
use whatever ; no command to break bread 
upon it ; no hint of any change of the Sab- 
bath in any way ; nor the slightest proof that 
the sacredness of the original Sabbath was 
ever transferred to it. 

4. Jesus worked at the carpenter's trade 
(Mark 6 : 3) till he was nearly thirty years 
old. He rested on the Sabbath, and worked 
six days ; hence he performed many a day's 
work on Sundays. Is our Saviour's example 
safe to follow ? 

5. The apostles and early Christians also 
worked on the first day of the week, and not 
an instance can be found where they treated 
it in any other way than as a " working day." 
Indeed, as no law was ever given in the Bible 
to observe it as a Sabbath, it cannot be wrong 
to work upon it. " Where no law is, there is 
no transgression." Rom. 4:15. "Sin is the 
transgression of the law." 1 John 3 : 4. 
Hence it cannot be sin to do ordinary busi- 
ness on Sunday, 

6. There are only nine instances in all the 
Bible where the first day of the week is men- 



SUMMARY— THE FIRST DAT. 215 

tioned : Gen. 1:5; Matt. 28 : 1 ; Mark 16 : 2, 
9; Luke 24:1; John 20 : 1, 19; Acts 20:7; 
1 Cor. 16:2. These instances refer to only 
three different days, the first being the day 
when God began to create ; the next six re- 
ferring to that first day on which Christ was 
raised from the dead ; while the one in Acts 
20 is the last particular day referred to ; and 
the direction concerning the " laying by in 
store/' in 1 Cor. 16 : 2, does not refer to any 
one first day, but to a duty to be done on all 
of them. It is remarkable that in every in- 
stance here referred to, the Scripture record 
gives plain evidence that it was a "working 
day." 

7. The first instance we have already no- 
ticed, in which God commenced his work of 
creating. The day of Christ's resurrection 
was one of the busiest days of which we have 
any record in the word of God. The disci- 
ples went out with the materials which they 
had prepared for the anointing of Christ's 
body, which work they would not do on 
the day previous. When they did not find 
him, they spent the time hurrying here 
and there inquiring of one another con- 
cerning the strange occurrences. Two of 
them walked fifteen miles on that day, out 
to Emmaus and back, and Christ himself 
walked much of the way with them. A 
strange way to observe a Sabbath ! As the 
first Sabbath of a series gives the proper ex- 
ample for all the rest, it is therefore perfectly 
proper to travel on a journey afoot many 
miles on the first day of the week. Thus we 
have the example of Christ and the disciples 



216 SUMMARY— THE FIRST DAY. 

for treating the first day as a working day 
since the resurrection of Christ. 

8. So also of the last specific instance in 
which the first day is mentioned, Acts 20 : 7. 
Paul walked nineteen and a half miles from 
Troas to Assos on the first day of the week. 
And though there was one religious meeting 
held in the dark part of that first day, the 
only case of the kind brought to view in all 
the Bible, yet the fact of his journeying 
plainly proves that Paul regarded it simply 
as a " working day." 

9. The recommendation of Paul to the 
Corinthians, — for every one to "lay by him in 
store, as God hath prospered him," on the first 
day of the week, — proves the same thing. 
This laying by him was " by himself at home," 
as many versions render it. Their doing this 
as God had prospered them would imply a 
reckoning of their accounts, a business incon- 
sistent with the sacredness of a Sabbath, but 
every way consistent with a " working day." 
How strange that upon such evidences good 
people should try to change a " working day" 
into the Sabbath ! 

10. After the death of the apostles, during 
the second century, we find some voluntary 
regard being paid to Sunday, with Good Fri- 
day and other festival days, for which no 
command of scripture was ever assigned, and 
later on, " custom "was quoted as additional 
evidence. Subsequently some held religious 
meetings upon it, and finally the Catholic 
Church favored it, calling it the Lord's day, 
about A. D. 200. At last Constantine, a 
heathen, passed a law (A. D. 321) command- 



SUMMARY— THE FIB ST DAY. 217 

ing a portion of the people to rest from labor 
on u the venerable day of the sun." This 
heathen law was the first ever made requiring 
cessation from labor on Sunday. 

11. From various first-day authors we have 
shown that Sunday was a heathen " memo- 
rial " of sun worship, the first form of idolatry ; 
hence the name Sunday. It was regarded all 
through the heathen world as a weekly fes- 
tival ; hence Constantine calls it "the vener- 
able day of the sun." This fact enabled the 
Catholic Church the more readily to exalt it 
among the vast body of heathen nominally 
converted to Christianity. 

12. The Roman Catholic Church continued 
till the Reformation to exalt the Sunday, 
fining and whipping men who w r ould not keep 
it, appealing to base frauds and false miracles 
to sustain it, till its partial observance became 
general, while the ancient Sabbath was sup- 
pressed. Yet it was nearly a thousand years 
before the first day was called the Sabbath, 
even by the Catholic Church. 

13. In the Protestant Reformation, those 
who were engaged in it came from the Cath- 
olic Church, and brought Sunday along with 
them, though many of the reformers regarded 
it simply as a festival day, like the other 
church festivals. 

14. The doctrine of a Sunday Sabbath, as 
now taught, was never promulgated in its 
present form, claiming divine authority for 
the change, and sustaining itself from the 
fourth commandment, until put forth by Rev. 
Nicholas Bound in 1595, and hence is an 
entirely modern doctrine. It has been exten- 

Ch. of Sab 15 



218 SUMMARY—THE FIRST DAY. 

sively taught in Great Britain and the United 
States, but has not been generally adopted 
on the continent of Europe. It is a doctrine 
having no foundation whatever in Scripture. 

15. The Catholic Church everywhere claims 
to have changed the Sabbath, and the facts of 
history abundantly verify the statement. The 
prophet clearly foretold the change (Dan. 7 : 
25), and the final reform (Rev. 12 : 17 ; 14 : 
12), when this heathen "memorial," in-- 
trenched by the power of the Catholic Church 
in the very "temple" or church of God, 
should be cast aside by the people who pre- 
pare for the coming of Christ. These will 
"keep the commandments of God" as the 
Father gave them. 

Dear reader, on which side of this last con- 
flict will you place yourself? Which of these 
days will you keep ? Will you take God's 
ancient Sabbath, ever recognized in the Holy 
Scriptures as his holy day for more than 4,000 
years ? or will you take the festival of pope 
and pagan as your day of rest, and still 
trample under foot the law of the great 
Jehovah ? " Choose you this day whom ye 
will serve." 



THE END. 



THE HISTORY OF THE SABBATH. 

By OOHH rUEVIfiS RJSIDHEWS, 

Late missionary at Basle, Switzerland, editor of Les Signes des Temps, 
and author of numerous theological works. 



This great and exhaustive treatise is the result of ten years' hard 
labor and historical research. It is a mine of useful information on 
the Sabbath question, and treats the subject from a Biblical and his- 
torical standpoint. Every passage of Scripture which has any con- 
nection with the Sabbath, in the Old Testament or in the New, is 
examined at length. The various steps by which the change from 
the seventh day to the first day was made, and the final exaltation of 
the Sabbath, are referred to in detail. 

THE COMPLETE TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS 

immediately succeeding the time of the apostles, in regard to the 
seventh and the first day, is presented, and the comparative merits 
of the two days are clearly shown. A copious index enables the 
reader to find any passage of Scripture, or the statement of any histo- 
rian. From the pulpit and the press, in social circles and in legisla- 
tive halls, the great demand of the hour is that the national rest-day 
be more strictly observed. To assist the intelligent-minded of our 
land to have correct views of this important question, this book is 
issued. Revised and enlarged, containing 548 pages, with steel por- 
trait of author. Cloth. $2.00; library, $2.50; half morocco, $3.25; full 
morocco, $4.00. Address the publishers of 

"The Change of the Sabbath.' 1 



THE NATIONAL SUNDAY LAW. 

This work contains the argument of Alonzo T. Jones, before the 
Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Dec. 13, 1888, in behalf of 
the rights of American citizens. The argument is enlarged to what 
it would have been without Senator Blair's interruptions, objections, 
and counter-arguments, and is accompanied with answers to all of 
his objections and counter-arguments. 

As the Sabbath question is now a living issue, this treatise will be 
interesting to all classes, especially legislators, lawyers, judges, and 
other public men. Dr. Crafts pronounced the original report "might}' 
interesting reading. 1 ' The comments of Mr. Jones make it more so. 
The argument is—" 

Based on Scripture and History, Constitution and Law. 

giving an analysis of the Sunday laws and other religious legislation 
of the different States, the Sunday-law movement of the fourth cent- 
ury, the Sunday-law movement of the nineteenth century, the meth- 
ods' used in securing indorsements to the petition for the Blair bill, 
and the workings of such Sunday laws as are proposed for the United 
States. 192 pages, 25 cents. Address the publishers of 

"The Change of the Sabbath." 



Qivil (Jov^metyt ai)d I^eli^ioi}. 

This work shows clearly the relation that should exist between 
the church and the State at the present time, as proved by the 
Scriptures and the historical evidence of twenty-five centuries. 
Chap. I. outlines vividly the relation that existed between "Chris- 
tianity and the Roman Empire;" Chap. II. distinguishes between 
"What is Due to God and What to Caesar;" Chap. III. shows for 
what purpose "The Powers that Be" are ordained; Chap. IV. ably 
discusses — 

"The Religious Attack upon the United States Constitution, 

and those who are making it;" Chap. V. unmasks "Religious Leg- 
islation," calling special attention to the Blair Sunday bill now 
pending in Congress; Chap. VI. is devoted to the "Sunday-Law 
Movement in the Fourth Century, and Its Parallel in the Nine- 
teenth." These and other topics of equal interest make this treatise 
indispensable to every lover of civil and religious liberty. Script- 
ural, logical, plain, and forcible. 176 pages, 25 cents. 
Address the publishers of 

"The Change of the Sabbath." 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 171 593 7 




